The Ahmedabad-headquartered group has invited public and private bankers to come for a visit next month so they may view first-hand the progress of the group's assets in the port and power business in addition to the New Mumbai airport The billionaire Gautam Adani is now shifting gears to mobilise finances for Group's expansion in airports, ports and power businesses as things are starting to calm down for the Adani Group after the publication of the damning Hindenburg report.
The Ahmedabad-headquartered group has invited public and private bankers to come for a visit next month so they may view first-hand the progress of the group's assets in the port and power business in addition to the New Mumbai airport.
After reducing pledged shares exposure and also de-leveraging a bit since December last year, the group has now taken the next step of raising equity capital, which is a precursor for raising more bank or bond funding later. Clearly, the group needs continuous refinancing support from the Indian banking system for its massive expansion plans.
Adani's top bankers are State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, YES Bank, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, IDFC Bank, Bank of India, RBL Bank, Central Bank of India, and Union Bank of India.
Despite a sharp decline in the share prices of group firms after allegations by the global research firm, the bankers have a generally positive opinion of the group.
Bank of Baroda's MD and CEO, Sanjiv Chadha had stated two months ago that the bank will maintain its lending support to the Adani Group, provided that the group's companies satisfies the lender's underwriting standards.
Similar sentiments were echoed by SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara when he recently responded by saying that the bank has provided loans to Adanis for projects that have tangible assets and maintain sufficient cash collections.
"The meeting with the lenders is not something new. LIC has recently met up with the Adani management. The banks keep meeting their top lenders to know the progress as disbursement of sanctioned money or existing loan facilities takes place over a period of time and not at one go," private banker told BT on the condition of anonymity.
The group is in the market for mobilising $2.50 billion through equity sales in its flagship companies, namely Adani Enterprises and Adani Transmission Ltd. "The fresh equity raise plans are positive for us. This gives confidence," said another banker on the condition of anonymity.
But this meeting is unlikely to be attended by the top brass. "The bank's second-level team members generally go for such meetings," explained a person familiar with the development.
Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL), which acts like a holding company for the group, has incubated new businesses in capital guzzler areas such as the green hydrogen ecosystem, solar, airports, roads and highways, data centres, defence and aerospace, and water.
Six months ago, AEL had planned to raise money to fund these new start-up businesses, but the issue came under severe pressure because of its falling stock price. AEL now claims that its net debt-to-EBITDA ratio has more than halved to 2.2 times from 5.2 times during last year.
Over the years, the flagship AEL has managed to successfully incubate businesses like Adani Transmission, Adani Power, Adani Ports, Adani Green, Adani Total Gas and Adani Wilmar. These businesses are independently listed on the market.