'Mischievous': Adani Group refutes report that claimed share-backed debt not paid

Adani Group on Tuesday refuted a report that claimed the conglomerate had not paid all its loans against promoters' shares. "Adani has completed full prepayment of margin linked share backed financing aggregating to USD 2.15 billion and all corresponding shares pledged for those facilities have been released," the company said, hours after its chief financial offer rejected the claim on Twitter.

In a tweet, CFO Jugeshinder Singh said that data will be updated on the exchanges after the end of the current quarter. He said the report could have simply seen the group's public disclosure on the payments "and would have easily verified that all margin loans of the promoters have been paid in full".

Also read: Stock exchanges seek clarification from Adani Enterprises over loan repayment

The response came after a report by the digital website, The Ken, raised questions on whether the energy-to-ports conglomerate had actually repaid debt totaling $2.15 billion. The report claimed that the embattled group only reduced the loan amount through a partial repayment to avoid pledging more shares and further action against it by lenders. It alleged that following the Adani Group's prepayment announcement, banks have only released the pledged shares of Adani Ports.

Earlier this month, Adani Group announced that it had prepaid $2.16 billion of share-backed financing, which it said was consistent with promoters' commitment to prepay all share-backed financing before 31 March 2023.

In a statement on March 12, Adani Group said that it had completed full prepayment of margin linked share backed financing aggregating to $2.15 billion, well before the committed timeline of 31 March 2023.

In a statement on March 7, the group said it had prepaid share-backed financing of Rs 7,374 crore ($902 million) ahead of its latest maturity in April 2025. With this repayment, the group said domestic and foreign banks will release 155 million shares - representing 11.8 per cent of the promoters' holding - of Adani Ports, 31 million shares of Adani Enterprises, 31 million shares of Adani Transmission, and 11 million shares of Adani Green Energy Limited.

However, the report published on Tuesday claimed that the banks had released shares of only one group firm, Adani Ports. The report claimed that the rest of the shares were yet to be released by lenders.

Rejecting this claim, the Adani CFO said: "The deliberate subterfuge will be clear to all once exchanges update the data post end of quarter."

Based on the news report, stock exchanges - NSE and BSE - on Tuesday sought clarification from Adani Group on its loan repayment.

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