The Adani promoter group has increased its stake in Adani Power by 2.2 per cent this month through market purchases, an exchange filing showed.

The promoter group’s stake in the company is now at 69.1 per cent.

Two promoter entities bought 8.5 crore shares of the company between September 5 and 25. At the end of trading on Thursday, those shares were worth Rs 3,191 crore on the NSE.

Billionaire Gautam Adani has been tightening his grip on his companies by acquiring stakes in other companies such as Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, and Adani Energy Solutions in the range of 2.016-2.17 per cent. Sources had put the total amount spent at around $2.6 billion. 

In the aftermath of the Hindenburg Research allegations and the large debt on its books, Adani had resorted to stake sales in key companies in the group to raise funds to pay down share-backed loans and other short-term maturing liabilities.

Also read
The senior notes, each of which have a face value of $1,000 and coupon of 3.375 per cent, are being bought back at $975 each and the offer will expire on October 26

Adani Ports starts purchase of $195 million worth of senior notes outstanding

In FY24 and FY25, Adani Enterprises will be spending about $1.1 billion each on the airports business

Adani Airports likely to be demerged and listed by FY26

That trend has now been reversed.

Sources said that the raising of stakes was meant to convey Adani’s commitment to his business and his confidence in it, as well as signal strong governance. It is also meant to suggest that the stocks may be undervalued, contrary to the allegation by Hindenburg that the promoters had inflated share prices by round-tripping.

A source pointed out that the highest investment by the company was in the incubator Adani Enterprises. All other entities that are now standalone businesses, such as Adani Ports and SEZ, Adani Power, Adani Green Energy, Adani Energy Solutions, Adani Total Gas and Adani Wilmar, have been spun off from Adani Enterprises, which is seen as a value creator.

Adani also wanted to own a majority in all his businesses, sources said.

Related Topics