The Billionaire Gautam Adanithe third richest person in the world with a net worth of almost 130 billion dollarswould be looking for new lenders to reduce the debt of its group led by the flagship company Adani Enterprises. In particular, in recent months several lenders, including CreditSights, Fitch’s debt research unit, had expressed concern that Adani Group was “deeply overleveraged” and that its many investments could lead to long-term risks for investors.
In this sense, some banks would have asked the conglomerate led by the Indian billionaire to reduce leverage, or reduce the ratio between total capital (owned and third party) and own capital, in order to limit the risk of investing in the Indian group. The Adani Group had initially resisted the criticisms by defining the financial leverage ratios of its companies as “healthy”, but now the group is allegedly working to reduce debt.
Adani is looking for a sidekick from sovereign wealth funds
To achieve this goal, Adani is allegedly seeking the support of some sovereign wealth funds with the intention of collecting from 5 to 10 billion dollars. According to Bloomberg reports, in fact, the network of companies owned by the billionaire would have contacted the managers of various companies, including Mubadala Investment and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to discuss possible investments.
Capital increase option for Adani Enterprises
Adani Enterprises would also be considering theissuance of new shares of $1.8 to $2.4 billionbut from this point of view no decision has yet been made and the November 25th the company’s board of directors will meet to discuss this eventuality.
A capital increase of this size would allow on the one hand to increase the liquidity of the company’s shares, while on the other it would improve the group’s debt, thus addressing two of the most frequent criticisms against the conglomerate.
Recall that the shares of Adani Enterprises from the beginning of the year increased by more than 130%, with a market value of approximately $56 billion. Today the stock on the Indian stock exchange showed weakness again with a loss of more than 3.3%.