Adani unit tapped US bond market hours before billionaire's indictment

By Caleb Mutua  Hours before US prosecutors charged Gautam Adani with participating in a bribery scheme, a unit of the billionaire’s conglomerate tapped the US corporate bond market for a $600 million offering that was more than three times oversubscribed. 

Prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, alleged on Wednesday that Adani and others participated in a scheme that involved promising to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts. Adani and other defendants lied about the plan as they sought to raise money from US investors, according to the indictment.   

The indictment came shortly after units of clean-energy arm Adani Green Energy Ltd sold a 20-year green bond in the US investment-grade market. The offering garnered at least $1.9 billion in peak investor demand, which allowed the company to lower borrowing costs on the deal, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

 

Adani had tried to sell a similar offering a month ago, but postponed the deal after some investors pushed back on pricing, Bloomberg News reported at the time. 

 

The bookrunners on the deal are DBS Bank Ltd., Emirates NBD Bank PJSC, First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, ING Group, Banca IMI SpA, Mizuho Securities Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. and the State Bank of India.  A representative for SMBC Nikko declined to comment. Bloomberg is reaching out to the other banks that managed the deal.