The slide in Adani group stocks of the past one week continued on Thursday as group companies lost ₹1.32 Lakh crore in market capatilisation. Earlier in the day, group chairman Gautam Adani tried to soothe nerves of jittery investors after the flagship company Adani Enterprises lost ₹64,296 crore in market capitalisation on Thursday.
Before the opening of the Indian stock market, Gautam Adani through a video message assured investors that Adani Group has strong fundamentals, healthy balance sheet and robust assets. He pointed out that Ebitda levels and cash flows of the Group are very strong and group companies have impeccable record of fulfilling debt obligations.
Despite Adani’s best efforts, the five group stocks closed in lower circuit. Flagship Company Adani Enterprises was down 26.7% and closed at one-year low of ₹1,565.
The driving force for today's fall was a Bloomberg report that said that Citigroup Wealth unit has halted margin loans on Adani Securities. This caused a dramatic fall on group company stocks that were faring well before this news surfaced.
A day before, Swiss finance giant Credit Suisse announced that it has stopped accepting bonds from Adani Group of companies as collateral for margin loans to its private banking clients. Bloomberg reported that the Swiss lender’s private banking arm assigned a zero lending value for notes sold by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Electricity Mumbai. It had previously offered a lending value of about 75% for Adani Ports, as per the report.
Since January 24, total market cap of Adani Group has fallen from ₹19.21 lakh crore to ₹10.41 lakh crore, down by ₹8.76 lakh crore or 45.68%. Since the launch of FPO, Adani Enterprises has lost ₹2.14 lakh crore while Adani Power, Adani Wilmar, Adani Port, Adani Total Gas, Adani Transmission, Adani Green, ACC, and Ambuja lost ₹28,020 crore, ₹19,716 crore, ₹64,000 crore, ₹2.39 lakh crore, ₹1.33 lakh crore, ₹1.38 lakh crore, ₹9,217 crore and ₹29,010 crore, respectively.
The marketcap of Adani Group at the end of December 2022 was ₹19.63 lakh crore but by Thursday it had fallen to ₹10.41 lakh crore, thus registering a fall of 46.94% in this calendar year.
Investors' scrutiny has intensified about the debt of Adani Group after the release of the Hindenburg Report. A few days back, Fortune India reported that the conglomerate has at least $289 million (equivalent to ₹2,355 crore assuming $1= Rs 81.5) worth of dollar note coupon payments due in 2023. In the next two months Adani Group will face an interest payment of $90.75 million, as per Bloomberg. By March 2023, Adani Port will face an interest payment of $40.45 million while Adani Transmission, Adani Electricity Mumbai, Adani Green and Adani International Container will need to pay $10 million, $19.7 million, $16.4 million and $4.2 million respectively.
Between 2021 and 2022, Adani Group doubled its market cap from ₹9.62 lakh crore to ₹19.63 Lakh crore.
All Adani Group companies were in red at the end of the trading session today with Adani Power registering a loss of ₹4,088 crore; Adani Wilmer lost ₹2,878 crore, Adani Port lost ₹6,512 crore, Adani Total Gas lost ₹20,912 crore, Adani Transmission lost ₹19,298 crore , Adani Green lost ₹18,263 crore, ACC gained ₹17.84 crore and Ambuja Cement gained ₹3,544 crore.