Country’s biggest institutional investor, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), in a clarification on January 30 said that the market value of its holding in the Adani Group’s companies stood at Rs 56,142 crore on January 27, 2023 against the total purchase value of equity of Rs 30,127 crore. These figures showed that the insurance behemoth has made huge money in the Adani group of stocks despite the recent selloff since January 25, 2022. LIC’s total holding under equity and debt of Adani group was Rs 35,917.31 crore as on December 31, 2022.
In a regulatory filing, LIC further said that these investments have, however, been made over a period of time. “Further, it may be appreciated that the credit rating of all of the Adani debt securities held by LIC are AA and above which is in compliance with the IRDAI investment regulations as applicable to all the Life Insurance companies,” LIC said in a release.
Of late, shares of Adani Group came under pressure after a report by US short seller Hindenburg Research claiming that the Indian conglomerate had engaged in stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of the last few decades.
Data available with Ace Equity showed that LIC held over a 1 per cent stake in companies like Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, Adani Ports, Adani Total Gas, Adani Transmission, Ambuja Cements and ACC. Shares of these companies tanked somewhere between 19 per cent and 27 per cent from January 24 to January 27.
Meanwhile, Jugeshinder Singh, Group CFO, Adani in a media statement said, “The report is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations that have been tested and rejected by India’s highest courts.”
The total assets under management by LIC are over Rs 41.66 lakh crore as of September 30, 2022. “LIC’s exposure in the Adani group, as on date, is 0.975 per cent of LIC’s total AUM at book value,” the insurance behemoth said.
