 "Adani Group")
By Catherine Bosley
Adani Group’s solar-energy unit has unveiled an initial plan to repay its $750 million bond due in September, marking the Indian conglomerate’s latest effort to restore investor confidence after a market rout earlier this year.
Adani Green Energy Ltd., part of billionaire Gautam Adani’s empire, will redeem the notes in full by the due date, it said in a filing to the Singapore stock exchange. It said the bond’s underwriters will provide a funding letter for $675 million. The filing also lists $75.47 million in restricted reserves.
Adani Green “shall deposit all the equity transaction proceeds and upstreaming of underlying distributable surplus” to build up the repayment amount, it said. The filing didn’t specify what the funding letter will contain or where the equity transaction proceeds will come from.
The finances of Adani Group’s various subsidiaries have attracted investor attention after US short seller Hindenburg Research accused the conglomerate of corporate fraud earlier this year, allegations that the group has repeatedly denied. The group’s stocks and bonds have staged a partial recovery since the initial meltdown triggered by Hindenburg’s report in January.
The terms of the Singapore-listed bond due on Sept. 8, 2024 require Adani Green to come up with a refinancing plan nine months before maturity.
Adani Group’s executives have sought to rebuild investor trust in recent months: they prepaid debt, held in-person meetings with investors from Hong Kong to London, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars repurchasing the debt of units including Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd. and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd.
Just this week, Adani Green raised a $1.4 billion loan for a renewable energy project, triggering a stock rally in the conglomerate’s units that boosted their collective market value by $23 billion.
