Adani Group rubbishes report on debt repayment concerns after shares turn red
Adani Group
A day after a media report claimed that Adani Group had not repaid its loans against promoter's shares, the company has come out with a statement. Rubbishing the assertions, Adani Group said the report was 'baseless' and 'deliberately mischievous'.
The company said it had completed 'full prepayment' of margin-linked share-backed financing aggregating to $2.15 billion. The conglomerate added all shares pledged for such loans had also been released.
“As per the present rules, 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," it added.
The company also released a comparative analysis of its pledge position on December 31, 2022, and March 27, 2023. According to the data, Adani Green Energy had reduced its position to 3.5 per cent from 4.4 per cent last year.
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Adani Group CFOJugeshinder Robbie Singh also took to Twitter to slam the report saying it speculated 'outright lies'.
"Deliberate misrepresentation (and if i speculate out right lies) of @TheKenWeb ( @SudzzBTS an @nimishshp) they know that relevant exchanges will update end of quarter. The deliberate subterfuge will be clear to all once exchanges update the data post end of quarter," tweeted the company CFO on Monday.
What did the report say?
Notably, an article by a media portal named The Ken, citing regulatory filings claimed that the Adani group had not paid a significant portion of the promoters' sharesthat was held as collateral.
“Regulatory filings examined by The Ken show that banks have not yet released a large portion of its promoters’ shares, as they should have if the loans had indeed been completely repaid," read the report.
"As per Indian laws, disclosures on the release of shares need to be filed with stock exchanges by lenders within two working days, and by promoters within seven working days. But neither the Adani Group nor the lenders have made these disclosures to stock exchanges," it added.
The release of the report had a cascading effect as Adani shares quickly started tumbling. Five of the 10 Adani portfolio companies hit the lower circuit while the flagship Adani Enterprises lost over seven per cent.
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The Gautam Adani-owned conglomerate has been under the scanner ever since US short-seller Hindenburg Research raised questions about the group's debt levels and use of tax havens.
In the brutal fallout of Hindenburg's report, investors dumped Adani shares while the company was forced to abandon a $2.5 billion share sale.
(With inputs from agencies)
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