New Businesses Turn The Tide At Adani Group

Emerging businesses-airports, green hydrogen ecosystem, integrated manufacturing & roads-contribute half to Adani Enterprises profits.

- P.B. JAYAKUMAR

#64 SECOND FASTEST GROWING

ADANI ENTERPRISES

GAUTAM ADANI-LED ADANI GROUP faced its biggest challenge in four decades of existence in FY23. A report released by research firm Hindenburg accusing it of financial fraud and stock manipulation took group market capitalisation from ₹19.18 lakh crore on January 24 to less than ₹10 lakh crore in just ten days.

The flagship company, Adani Enterprises (AEL), listed three decades ago, had to call off a ₹20,000 crore follow-on public offering, the biggest in India's history. Gautam Adani, who had become third richest in the world with over $90 billion personal wealth in 2022, fell out of top 20 in the global rich list as his wealth shrunk to nearly half.

Despite the setback, Adani swung into action to calm investors' nerves by reiterating that the "fundamentals of the group's businesses are strong" and it has steady and assured cash flows to run its businesses and complete ongoing projects. The group fully prepaid margin-linked share-backed loans worth $2.15 billion on March 12 before the committed deadline of March 31. "Promoters also prepaid $500 million in facilities taken for Ambuja cement acquisition, taking equity in Ambuja financing to $2.6 billion (out of $6.6 billion). The prepayment was done along with interest payment of $200 million, according to a Jefferies analysis of Adani Group after the Hindenburg report.