Shares of Adani group companies were mostly mixed in Wednesday’s trade even as the group refuted a media report claiming the conglomerate had not paid all its loans against promoters’ shares, calling it a ‘mischievous claim’. Three group stocks namely Adani Green Energy, Adani Total Gas and Adani Transmission hit their 5 per cent lower circuit limits. Five group stocks namely Adani Power, Adani Ports & SEZ, Ambuja Cements, ACC and NDTV rose marginally. Two group shares Adani Wilmar and Adani Enterprises were flat at the timing of writing this report.
That said, the group market capitalisation fell Rs 17,243 crore to Rs 8,73,505.74 crore from Rs 8,90,749.72 crore on Tuesday. The group has lost just over Rs 97,000 crore in market value in four sessions now.
Shares of Adani Enterprises were trading flat at Rs 1,601.95. Adani Ports rose 1.36 per cent to Rs 601.55. Adani Power advanced 0.66 per cent to Rs 175.
Adani Transmission got locked at 5 per cent lower circuit limit of Rs 965. Adani Green and Adani Total Gas also hit their respective 5 per cent lower circuit limits. Adani Wilmar was down 0.34 per cent at Rs 367.05.
Ambuja Cements rose 1.3 per cent, ACC edged 0.3 per cent higher while NDTV added 0.8 per cent to Rs 175.75.
“The Adani Group strongly refutes the news report published by The Ken, a digital publication, which makes the baseless and deliberately mischievous claim that the Group has not completed repayment of USD 2.15 billion in share-backed debt,” a Adani group statement read.
The group in a statement said it completed the full prepayment of margin linked share backed financing aggregating to $2.15 billion and all corresponding shares pledged for those facilities have been released.
This is after a report by The Ken raised questions about whether the group actually has repaid debts worth $2.15 billion. The report prompted a fresh bout of selling in Adani group stocks. Later, stock exchanges sought clarification from the group regarding the news report.
As per the present rules, the Adani group statement noted, any share pledge or release is automatically reported by system driven disclosure (SDD) mechanism of the depository participant, and no separate filing is required to be made. The same has already been updated and is reflected on the NSE website.
“However, the BSE website has not been updated to reflect the same,” it noted.
Besides, it noted that as per the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011, Rule 29 (1) & 29 (2) along with 29 (4) stipulates disclosure obligations on pledge or release of 5 per cent or higher number of shares of the company, which in this case was applicable only to Adani Ports and is not applicable to Adani Transmission and Adani Green Energy.
“Therefore, only Adani Ports’ disclosure has been filed as per SEBI SAST regulations,” the group said.
As per the media release of February 6, 12 per cent of Adani Ports shares were
released (which was higher than 5 per cent) and 3 per cent of Adani Green Energy shares and 1.4 per cent of Adani Transmission shares were released. Accordingly, SAST disclosure was applicable only to Adani Ports, the group noted.
Besides, the group noted that there has been incremental prepayment of $134 million completed after the press release February 6 ($1,114 million) and March 7 ($902 million), resulting in the updated debt figure of $2.15 billion for the press release of March 12.
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