Following a media report challenged claims made by the Adani Group on debt repayment totaling USD 2.15 billion, stock exchanges, National Stock Exchange, and Bombay Stock Exchange has sought clarification from the embattled group.
"The NSE, BSE has sought clarification from Adani Enterprises Limited with respect to a recent news item captioned The Adani Group wants you to believe it has repaid all its loans against promoters. The response from the company is awaited," NSE said. Following a report by The Ken, Adani Enterprises stock ended 7% lower at Rs 1,601.55. All the remaining 9 stocks also ended in the negative territory, with six locked in 5% lower circuit limits. "Despite the Adani Group's claim of “complete” repayment of USD 2.15 billion in sharebacked debt, regulatory filings show that banks have not released a significant portion of the promoters' shares held as collateral, indicating that the debt has not been fully paid off," the report said. It claimed that the group has only reduced the loan amount through partial repayment to avoid pledging more shares and any action against it by the lenders.
After Adani’s prepayment announcement, banks have only released the pledged shares of Adani Ports & SEZ, according to the report "The pledged shares of Adani Green and Adani Transmission have not been released by banks even a month after the loan repayment. This is highly unusual as pledged shares are usually released immediately after the borrower settles their debts," it said.
Meanwhile, Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh on Tuesday said stock exchanges update data on promoter share pledges at the end of the quarter, as he tried to clarify on present data not matching with the conglomerate's statement of repaying all the USD 2.15 billion of share-backed debt. Singh termed reports suggesting that the company's March 7 and 12 announcements did not match with the information available on stock exchanges as "deliberate misrepresentation" he said in a Twitter post. "The deliberate subterfuge will be clear to all once exchanges update the data post end of quarter." On March 12, the conglomerate stated that it had repaid USD 2.15 billion of loans that were taken by pledging promoter shares.
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