Ambuja Cement stock surges on shareholder nod to raise ₹20,000 cr

The Ambuja Cement Ltd stock has shown an upward momentum today after its shareholders approved all proposals in its EMG (extraordinary general meeting), including the raising of ₹20,000 crore from an Adani group company and the appointment of Gautam Adani and his son Karan Adani, among others on the board of Ambuja Cement. The stock is trading at ₹24, up ₹2.20 or 0.42%, on the National Stock Exchange.

The company EGM passed a special resolution to raise ₹20,000 crore by issuing securities on a preferential basis to Harmonia Trade and Investment Ltd, an Adani group entity, with 91.37% votes, shows a regulatory update. Adani group chairman Gautam Adani, his son Karan Adani and two directors and four independent directors were also appointed to the boards of Ambuja Cement.

After their acquisition in May 2022 by the Adani group, a new board was inducted at both Ambuja Cement Ltd and ACC Ltd, with Gautam Adani taking over as the chairman of Ambuja Cement and his elder son, Karan Adani, as chairman and non-executive director of ACC. Ajay Kapoor, the erstwhile CEO of Ambuja, was appointed as the CEO.

The latest development comes after Adani Group last month announced an equity infusion of ₹20,000 crore in Ambuja via warrants at a price of ₹418.87 per share, increasing the promoter stake to 70.6%.

Reacting to the development, the Ambuja Cement stock opened a gap-down but soon surged and touched an intraday high of ₹536 (2.6%). The stock has been gaining for the last four days and has risen 7.26% in the period. The cement stock is trading higher than the five-day, 20-day, 50-day, 100-day and 200-day moving averages.

Though the stock outperformed the sector by 0.85% today, the delivery volume of 23.46 lakh on October 7 has fallen by 26.3% against the five-day average delivery volume. The stock has risen 2.11% in the past week, 10.08% in the past month, 45.36% in 6 months, and 35.30% in the year-to-date period.

In August 2022, the Adani family also launched a ₹31,000 crore open offer to acquire a 26% additional stake in both Ambuja and ACC. The group acquired around 4.89 crore equity shares of ACC from public shareholders for ₹11,259.97 crore and 51.63 crore equity shares of Ambuja Cement for ₹19,879.57 crore.

The open offer was triggered after the Adani family in May 2022 signed a deal to acquire Holcim’s entire stake in ACC and Ambuja Cement for around $10.5 billion. Holcim, through its subsidiaries, owned 63.19% of Ambuja Cement and 54.53% of ACC -- of which 50.05% were held through Ambuja Cement. The transaction was financed by facilities aggregating to $4.50 billion availed from 14 international banks.

Gautam Adani, with a net worth of ₹10.2 lakh crore, is the richest man in India, as per the Fortune India data. He's also the richest man in Asia and the fourth richest person in the world, behind Tesla chief Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and French business magnate Bernard Arnault.