Adani Group To Pre-pay $500 Million Loan: Report Barclays Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and Deutsche Bank AG are among the banks that lent the group $4.5 billion to finance the purchase of Holcim cement assets last year. A portion of that loan is due on March 9, reported Bloomberg
By Shrabona Ghosh •
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The Adani Group plans to prepay a $500 million bridge loan due next month after some banks balked at refinancing the debt following a short seller report that sent the group's assets tumbling, reported Bloomberg.
"Barclays Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and Deutsche Bank AG are among banks that lent Adani $4.5 billion to finance the purchase of Holcim Ltd. cement assets last year. A portion of that loan is due March 9. The lenders were in talks to refinance the loan up to a week before the critical report from Hindenburg Research was published, according to people familiar with the matter. Those negotiations stalled after the report alleging fraud led to a massive selloff, chilling the banks' willingness to refinance, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter," quoted the report.
Earlier, in light of recent market volatility, promoters of Adani Group have posted the amounts to prepay $1,114 million ahead of its maturity in September 2024.
"In light of recent market volatility and in continuation of the promoters' commitment to reduce the overall promoter leverage backed by Adani Listed Company shares, we are pleased to inform that promoters have posted the amounts to prepay USD1,114 million ahead of its maturity in September 2024," said the company's spokesperson in a statement.
With the repayment of such amount, the shares of these Adani listed companies shall be released in due course, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd to release 168.27 million shares, representing 12 per cent of the promoters' holding. Adani Green Energy Limited to release 27.56 million shares, representing 3 per cent of promoters' holding and Adani Transmission Limited wil release 11.77 million shares, representing 1.4 per cent of promoters' holding.prepay $1,114 million ahead of its maturity in September 2024.
On Tuesday, Adani Ports said it is considering total loan repayment and prepayment of around INR 5,000 crore. "This will significantly improve our net debt to EBITDA ratio and bring it closer to 2.5 times by March 2024," said Karan Adani,CEO, Adani Ports.
Adani Group is in talks to prepay all loans backed by pledged shares, a spokesperson earlier told Reuters. On Sunday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed charges of the government favoring the Adani Group. She said, "Everything was awarded through open tender." She also accused the opposition of hypocrisy by pointing out that their governments in states have handed over land to the same conglomerate to build ports and other projects. "We have not given anything. Let me be absolutely clear, any project under Prime Minister Narendra Modi goes through the open tender process (of) global tendering," the minister told Times Now.
