Adani Group plans to spend 7 trillion rupees ($84 billion) on infrastructure over the next decade, a similar amount the Indian conglomerate owned by billionaire Gautam Adani has lost in market value since corporate fraud allegations were leveled against it by a US short-seller earlier this year.
“We desire to invest more,” Jugeshinder Singh, the group chief financial officer, told reporters on Friday in Mumbai, without fleshing out further details.
Singh’s ambitious expenditure targets are part of Adani’s strategy to attempt to draw a line over damaging allegations made by Hindenburg Research in January, after the short-seller accused the conglomerate of engaging in years of stock price manipulation and accounting malpractice. The company has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
During an annual address to shareholders in July, Adani announced grand expansion targets across his ports, energy and infrastructure businesses. Before then his conglomerate had pulled back from some of its non-core investments as it sought to shore up shareholder confidence and pay down debt.
The conglomerate aims to raise bonds via high yield papers and private placements through its firms including Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. and Adani Energy Solutons Ltd. next year, Singh said. Adani Group will also infuse money to repay its green energy arm’s bonds maturing in September and December next year, potentially in July to avoid a prepayment penalty, Singh said.
Shares of Adani Group companies rallied this week after India’s Supreme Court concluded hearing the arguments in a case relating to an investigation into Hindenburg’s allegations, reserving its judgment on the matter.
The conglomerate was also buoyed earlier this month when a US government development agency announced that it would provide more than $500 million in financial assistance to Adani’s port terminal project in Sri Lanka, which Adani’s son declared was a “reaffirmation by the international community.”
