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Refinancing for Adani Group’s green energy business is the biggest concern in the near term after the indictment of the conglomerate’s founder Gautam Adani by US prosecutors, according to research firm CreditSights.
“Funding channels will inevitably squeeze across the Adani Group, with creditors likely to reduce or limit their group-wide exposure,” the firm’s analysts Lakshmanan R, Jonathan Tan and Nicole Chua wrote in a note. The analysts said they are most concerned about Adani Green Energy Ltd. “given it has the weakest liquidity and credit fundamentals.”
The analysts pointed to short-term debt of about $2 billion, largely in the form of project loans, at Adani’s green energy unit. That business decided to scrap a $600 million bond sale this week, the proceeds of which were earmarked for repaying foreign-currency loans.
On Friday, most of the Adani Group’s dollar bonds extended declines after US charges this week alleging that the conglomerate’s founder helped drive a $250 million bribery scheme.
The Adani Group said that the allegations are baseless.
In one of the latest developments, S&P Global Ratings revised to negative the credit outlook for multiple Adani Group entities on Friday, following the US bribery charges, citing funding-access and financing-cost concerns.
Still, the declines in Adani’s dollar bonds on Friday were a fraction of the previous day when the news of the US charges first jolted markets. One of Adani Green Energy’s notes, sold in March, fell by 0.9 cent on the dollar to 85 cents, after tumbling by a record 9 cents on Thursday, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The impact on Adani’s bond prices from the US investigation will likely be less severe than when the group faced allegation from short-seller Hindenburg Research in 2023, in part because of the conglomerate’s greater focus on liquidity management, said Eric Liu, a credit analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore. He pointed to Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd.’s notes as his top preference in the group’s debt, given that firm’s strong cash flows.
For Adani’s green energy business, some banks may be unwilling to rollover upcoming debt, “posing a high degree of refinancing risk,” CreditSights analysts wrote in their report Thursday. The Indian government may, however, prod state-backed power financiers to provide funds, they added.
“We are cognizant that this is a formal indictment made now by reputed US regulatory bodies” compared with the earlier allegations made by Hindenburg against the Adani Group, the analysts wrote. “The situation is much more serious now with significant negative credit implications.”
Read BI: Adani Bonds Risk Ratings Backlash From Legal Woes: Credit React
(Updates with analyst comment, bond moves.)
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