Global shipping major Mediterranean Shipping Co is picking up 49 per cent stake in India’s fledgling container transhipment hub Vizhinjam Port in Kerala for about $1.4 billion, making it one of the largest foreign direct investments in nation’s maritime sector.
A unit of MSC’s terminal arm — Terminal Investment Limited (TIL) — will invest $539 million upfront in Adani Vizhinjam Port Pvt., followed by $858 million once the port’s expansion is completed by December 2028. The capital will be deployed to accelerate expansion, signalling investor confidence in the Adani Group’s growth plans.
The deepwater transhipment hub is being scaled up to 5.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of capacity from 1.6 million TEUs when it was commissioned in 2024.
That will help it attract the world’s largest container vessels and place India firmly on major east-west shipping routes, positioning it to win traffic currently bound for Colombo, Dubai or Singapore.
TIL is one of the world’s largest container terminal operators and is part of the MSC Group. It operates a portfolio of more than 100 container terminals across five continents and handles more than 70 million TEUs annually.
MSC’s investment in Vizhinjam, owned by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones, comes shortly after American prosecutors sought to resolve fraud charges against Adani group founder Gautam Adani — lifting a key overhang that had constrained the Adani Group’s financing options following a damaging short-seller report in 2023 and a separate US scrutiny in 2024.
MSC’s involvement in Vizhinjam extends a growing partnership with India’s biggest private port operator. The Swiss shipping giant already holds stakes in Adani’s Mundra CT-3 and Ennore terminals.
Vizhinjam’s development carries strategic weight for India, which currently relies on overseas ports for about 75 per cent of its transshipped cargo. The port’s natural depth and upgraded infrastructure are designed to change that dynamic by enabling direct calls from ultra-large container vessels that previously bypassed Indian ports.