Arvind Port & Infra began in 1987 as a shipping agency earning commissions on cargo, but has since transformed into an asset-heavy operator that owns the barges, the cranes and the hotels it makes money from. The recurring approach is simple: buy hard assets that serve infrastructure and industrial customers in and around Gujarat’s busy maritime corridor, then rent them out under medium-term contracts - first in shipping, then in hospitality, and now through a subsidiary that extends the same logic to a broader fleet. Every vertical is a variation on owning the steel and collecting a fee for its use. # Business segments Three businesses at different stages - a barge-rental core that does the heavy lifting, a two-hotel hospitality side serving industrial Jamnagar, and a subsidiary that extends the fleet logic to wider ship operations - each built by putting the company’s own capital into physical assets. ## 1. Barge chartering and marine works: the heavy-lifting engine **The company owns a fleet of barges and rents them out, complete with towing and crew, to construction firms that need to move rock, cement and equipment across water - it is a pay-per-project equipment rental business, not a shipping line.** - **Rented by the job, not the voyage** - customers take barges on contracts lasting six to eighteen months, with the company responsible for towing the vessel to the project site and bringing it back when the work is done. That turns each barge into a committed revenue stream for the duration of the contract. - **More than just a floating platform** - alongside bare-boat chartering, the company provides stevedoring, cargo handling, dredging, underwater trenching, underwater rock breaking, port construction and port maintenance, so a single work order can cover the barge and the skilled operation around it. - **Low-maintenance assets parked between jobs** - barges are described as low-maintenance equipment, and upkeep is done during the idle periods when vessels sit in the yard waiting for the next contract, which keeps running costs contained. - **A growing fleet with a Gujarat anchor** - the barge fleet has been built up steadily with acquisitions like ‘Arcadia Sumeru’, ‘KB-26’, ‘KB-32’, ‘KB-28’ and ‘Arcadia Minica’ across recent years, and the company’s operational base in Gujarat puts it close to both the customers and the key maritime routes they work on. A crane pontoon barge was also added in mid-2024, expanding the kind of lift work the fleet can take on. - **Customers are building India’s infrastructure** - the clients are government agencies, EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractors and private companies running large-scale projects that need heavy materials - sand, cement, steel, aggregates - moved efficiently across inland and coastal waterways, and sometimes even personnel ferried to water-access-only sites. ## 2. Hotels: rooms for refinery town **Two hotels in Jamnagar - one operating, one ready to open - earn their keep from walk-in corporate guests drawn by one of India’s largest petroleum refinery complexes next door.** - **A landlord that became a hotelier** - Hotel Millennium Plaza was acquired back in 1997 and generated rental income for over two decades; only in 2021 did the company begin operating it directly with its own staff, turning a passive property into an operating business. - **72 keys, twice over** - the operating hotel, Millennium Plaza, has 72 rooms across nearly 5,900 square metres, while the second property, Hotel 999, also has 72 rooms and is built but yet to start commercial operations. Both sit near the Jamnagar-Khambhadiya highway in the vicinity of the refinery zone. - **Beds in-house, kitchens outsourced** - the company manages stay and hospitality operations with dedicated employees on its payroll, but the food and restaurant side is run by third-party contractors, keeping the operating model simpler than a full-service hotel. - **Walk-in demand from industry** - most revenue comes from walk-in guests rather than advance bookings, reflecting the steady flow of corporate travellers, industrial contractors and project personnel who need a room close to the refinery and port infrastructure. ## 3. Arcadia Logistics: the subsidiary fleet **A recently acquired subsidiary extends the same asset-ownership logic to a wider range of vessels - it can own, operate, hire and lease ships of any kind, from barges to passenger boats.** - **Bought through a rights issue** - in December 2024, the company acquired a 75% stake in Arcadia Logistics Limited (formerly Bedi Shipping Limited) by subscribing to a rights issue of roughly three million shares at Rs. 51 each, making it a consolidated subsidiary. - **A broader licence to float** - Arcadia Logistics is mandated to operate, own, purchase, build, run, hire, lease and maintain ships of all kinds including barges, boats, launches and other water vessels for both cargo and passengers, giving the group a wider maritime toolkit than the parent’s barge fleet alone. - **Fleet optimisation in motion** - the group actively manages its combined marine asset base: in mid-2026, Arcadia Logistics sold a crane pontoon barge named “KB 19” to an external party as part of an ongoing evaluation and optimisation of the portfolio, showing that assets are rotated, not just accumulated. # Group structure and partners **The company sits inside a promoter-led group with interests spanning shipping, logistics, construction and food, and the promoter family has repeatedly put its own capital into the listed entity through warrant subscriptions and asset transactions.** - The promoter and Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Mr. Arvindbhai Kantilal Shah, is also the proprietor of Arcadia Shipping and Trading Company, and the wider promoter group includes Arcadia Logistics Limited, AVM Marine LLP, Arcadia Libra LLP, Silverleaf Constructions LLP, ACS Ventures LLP and Anart Foods Private Limited - a network that reaches beyond shipping into real estate and food. - In October 2024, the company issued 39,75,000 fully convertible warrants to promoters and a non-promoter entity at Rs. 69 per warrant, with 25% paid upfront and the balance due within eighteen months; by March 2025, over seven hundred thousand had been converted into equity, bringing fresh capital into the company. - The crane pontoon barge acquired in June 2024 was purchased under an agreement not in the ordinary course of business, and the Arcadia Logistics stake was acquired from one of the group entities of the Company, illustrating a pattern of bringing assets onto the listed company’s balance sheet.