The name Adhira is of Sanskrit origin meaning “quick and strong”, said Captain Pappu Sastry, the owner of Adhira Shipping & Logistics (ASL). “So it was the perfect name for our company.”
Adhira is set to become a household name with plans to float the firm on London’s AIM market via a $100m IPO revealed at a stylish launch at the Aqua Shard restaurant in London’s Shard skyscraper this week.
Sastry took control of the company earlier this year following a management buyout, which saw the name change from Arise Shipping & Logistics. The father-of-two has wasted no time in charting an IPO course.
Speaking at the launch, he had a simple message for investors defining what Adhira does today.
“We help mining companies to manage their logistics. Instead of them trying to have their own set-up, we go in as part of their company,” he explained.
“By doing that small innovation of a business model, I would say we don’t compete on price. We are not anybody’s competition.
“People don’t see us as the front but for every mining company that we work with, we become their partner, and we manage their logistics, and we also strategise their logistics for the long term.”
In practical terms, this means budgeting for and buying ships and barges and aiding companies with mobilising them.
Priding himself on being a global citizen, Sastry has travelled to more than 155 countries, but he admits to sometimes missing being a ship’s captain.
Africa is a key to ASL’s business with clients from Australia, Europe, Canada and the US that have projects there and “need somebody who will guide them through the process”.
“People don’t appreciate the necessity or the importance of logistics. Most of the mining companies, don’t even bother with it.”
Guinea bauxite and untapped African ore
ASL focuses on the barging, transshipment and shipping out of Guinean bauxite.
Sastry was first introduced to the Guinea Shipping Corporation in 2010.
“Since then, we have been in and out of Guinea. Bauxite in Guinea is a massive story which nobody really understands or covers,” he said.
In 2015, Guinean bauxite exports to China were at 300,000 tonnes. By 2023, they had risen to 120.3m tonnes.
“I think there is a huge opportunity in mining logistics in Africa in general, bulk is what we are concentrating mostly on,” Sastry said.
ASL also runs iron ore projects in Sierra Leone, which have only emerged in the past three years.
Sastry said: “People don’t even talk about it. It’s a huge market, huge business.
“It was big in 2019 and then stopped abruptly, and it started again only after Covid, when China realised that they couldn’t really get out of Australia completely for iron ore.”
Indian national Captain Pappu Sastry, seemingly a man who has lived many lives, currently resides in Dubai, home to Adhira’s HQ.
Before that, he lived in Hong Kong for 12 years where he set up Nepa Projects & Investments.
The ex-vessel master then embarked on an MBA from the University of Manchester to get his "fundamentals right” before applying them in a corporate setting in Indonesia at Asian Bulk Logistics (ABL).
“That was a $15m company when I joined, and five years later, it was a $300m company with presence in four different countries and different businesses, despite the corporate structure, not because of it,” he said.
“I then wanted ABL to set up something in Dubai because I thought the timing was right for Africa, but I could not convince them, so I got out and set it up myself.”
Dubai-based Arise Shipping & Logistics then took an interest in Sastry’s plans and they became partners.
“But their contribution was not proportional, so I bought over their share from the first of January [2024] on my own, and we changed the name and rebranded, though it’s still ASL.”
Sastry explained that China alone has 17 big iron ore projects in Africa that are two to three years in.
“Some of the largest reserves of iron ore are still untapped. They have got 20bn tonnes of iron ore still lying in Simandou.”
Sastry also outlined how the company focuses on critical minerals projects, including copper, tin, manganese and lithium.
Earlier this year, ASL was appointed as a logistics contractor by Moonbound Mining for its Norrabees lithium project in South Africa.
“In the next two years, we will become the largest logistics player in lithium in Africa, with the volumes that we have and that are in the pipeline.”
The price is rice?
Sastry also shared his previous involvement in rice shipping with Nigeria as “once upon a time, it was the largest importer”.
Although this venture ended due to governmental changes in Nigeria, Sastry believes in delving back into rice shipping.
“In that space there is a huge potential and we will explore that for shipping, because that used to be one of my core businesses,” Sastry said, indicating that Brazil was an untapped market.
He added: “We have done a little bit of rice from Brazil many years ago. Price wise, it was competitive, better freight, although now I imagine the port costs don’t support rice that much.”
South America, generally, is also somewhere the company is looking to explore further.
“I would say our focus is Africa for now. But some of the clients are going to South America, and we would go there with them.”
