Stock exchange NSE has sought clarification from Adani Enterprises Ltd over its loan repayment. “The exchange has sought clarification from Adani Enterprises with respect to a recent news item captioned ‘The Adani Group wants you to believe it has repaid all its loans against promoters’. The response from the company is awaited,” NSE stated on Tuesday. Separately, BSE has also asked for a response from the company.
Adani stocks tumbled today after a report published by ‘The Ken’ raised questions on whether the energy-to-ports conglomerate has actually repaid debt totaling $2.15 billion.
Earlier this month, the Ahmedabad-based group announced that it has completed the prepayment of margin-linked share-backed financing ahead of the committed timeline of March 31.
The Ken report claimed that the Indian conglomerate only reduced the loan amount through a partial repayment to avoid pledging more shares and further action against it by lenders. It alleged that following the Adani Group’s prepayment announcement, banks have only released the pledged shares of Adani Ports.
It also suggested that the pledged shares of Adani Green Energy and Adani Transmission had not been released by the bank even a month after the loan repayment announcement.
“This is highly unusual as pledged shares are usually released immediately after the borrower settles their debts,” the report stated.
Apart from this, news agency Reuters, citing sources, reported that the Indian conglomerate was seeking to renegotiate terms of outstanding loans worth $4 billion taken last year to buy cement firms ACC and Ambuja Cements.
The report claimed that the Gautam Adani-led group has begun negotiations with lenders to extend the tenure of its $3 billion bridge loan to a period of five years or beyond from the existing 18 months. It is also reportedly seeking the conversion of another $1 billion mezzanine loan tranche, which currently has a maturity of 24 months, to senior secured debt with a repayment schedule extending up to five years.
The conglomerate bought the two cement companies from Holcim AG for $10.5 billion in May last year.
The listed entities of Adani Group saw a massive market value erosion since January 24, when US-based short seller Hindenburg Research released a report alleging stock manipulation and accounting fraud by the Gautam Adani-led conglomerate. Adani Group, however, denied all the allegations.
The stocks, then, recorded a decent rebound after US boutique investment firm GQG Partners announced a cumulative investment of Rs 15,446 crore in four Adani firms — Adani Enterprises, Adani Green, Adani Ports and Adani Transmission.
The stock rout resumed after the fresh claims. Shares of Adani Enterprises today settled 7.06 per cent lower at Rs 1,601.55, extending their fall for the fifth straight session.
