Adani Enterprises clocks ₹820 cr profit in Q3; stock rises 5%

Adani Group's flagship company Adani Enterprises on Tuesday posted a net profit of ₹820 crore for the third quarter against a loss of ₹12 crore in the year-ago period. The Gautam Adani-led infrastructure giant had reported a profit of ₹460 crore in the September quarter.

Revenue from operations increased to ₹26,612 crore for the quarter ended December 2022 compared with ₹18,758 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, according to its stock exchange filing. Total Income rose 42% to ₹26,951 crore.

Adani Enterprises' earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) surged 101% ₹1,968 crore in Q3. Revenue from Adani's airport business doubled to ₹1,732 crore during the third quarter. Integrated resource management business reported a 38% year-on-year growth in revenue to ₹17,595 crore. Revenue from the company's mining business nearly tripled to ₹2,044 crore.

The quarterly earnings come days after the board of Adani Enterprises abruptly called off its fully subscribed follow-on public offering (FPO) in an effort to insulate investors from any potential financial losses.

Reacting to Q3 earnings, shares of Adani Enterprises jumped as much as 5% to ₹1,842 apiece on the NSE. The stock, however, has crashed 53% this year after New York-based short seller Hindenburg Research accused the Adani group of "a brazen stock manipulation" for artificially pumping share prices of its listed companies.

Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani group, says the current market volatility is temporary and Adani Enterprises will continue to work with the twin objectives of moderate leverage and looking at strategic opportunities to expand and grow.

"Our success is due to our strong governance, strict regulatory compliance, sustained performance, and solid cashflow generation," says Adani. "Our fundamental strength lies in mega-scale infrastructure project execution capabilities, organisational development and exceptional O&M management skills comparable to the best in the world. AEL's exceptional resilience and capacity to build highly profitable core sector business indicate how our strategy of harnessing the diverse strengths of the Adani portfolio of companies is creating consistent long-term value for all our stakeholders," he adds.

"Over the past three decades, as well as quarter after quarter and year after year, Adani Enterprises has not only validated its standing as India's most successful infrastructure incubator but has also demonstrated a track record of building core infrastructure business," says the Adani group chairman.

To curb stock market volatility, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) added Adani Enterprises under its short-term additional surveillance measure (ASM) framework earlier this month.

Meanwhile, New York University's finance professor Aswath Damodaran has pegged Adani Enterprises valuation at ₹945 per share. "A valuation of Adani Enterprises with upbeat assumptions on revenue growth and operating margins, and without factoring any of the Hindenburg accusations of fraud and malfeasance, yields a value of just about ₹ 945 per share," Damodaran said.