Adani Ports repays ₹1,000 cr to SBI Mutual Fund in comeback strategy, to prepay another debt due in March

Billionaire Gautam Adani-led Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd has paid ₹1,000 crore loan on Monday and promised to repay more as the embattled empire mapped a comeback strategy amid a rout in the group stocks triggered by a bombshell US short seller Hindenburg Research's report released on 24 January.

Adani Ports and SEZ has paid SBI Mutual Funds' due amount of ₹1,000 crore and the unit will also prepay a short-term debt of ₹1,000 crore of commercial papers due next month, a company spokesperson said.

The country's largest-private-sector ports operator used its cash balance and funds generated from business operations to pay its short-term debt.

"This part prepayment is from the existing cash balance and funds generated from the business operations," according to the company spokesperson. "This underscores the confidence which the market has placed on the prudent capital and liquidity management plan for the group."

“SBI MF had an exposure of around ₹1,000 crore to Adani Group, which has been repaid on maturity. We have no further exposure to the Adani Group,” said SBI MF spokesperson.

The development follows an earlier announcement by Adani Ports where it said it is considering repaying a debt of nearly ₹5,000 crore in the year starting April, thereby improving net debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ratio to about 2.5 times from just over 3 times currently.

The apple-to-airport conglomerate is attempting to soothe investors and lenders who were spooked by allegations of accounting fraud and stock manipulations that has put the Adani Group's financial health under the scanner. The Adani Group has denied wrongdoing.

The conglomerate has said that its companies face no material refinancing risk and have no near-term liquidity requirements.

Capital markets regulator Sebi told the Supreme Court earlier this week that it was looking into the short seller's allegations and into market activity immediately before and after the report.

On Friday, Asia Index said it would drop the group's two recent cement acquisitions – Ambuja Cements Ltd and ACC Ltd – from the S&P BSE 100 ESG Index from 22 February.

The conglomerate is reportedly planning to completely pre-pay all loans against shares over the next 20 days.

Adani Green shares closed 4.99% down on Monday, after losing nearly 70% since the US short seller report. Adani Power climbed 5%, while Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone ended up 0.24%.

Shares of Adani Group's flagship Adani Enterprises closed down 6.37%, while Adani Total Gas shares, which have been hit the hardest by the report, ended down 5%.