NEW DELHI: From cement and telecom to media industry, there seems to be no stopping for billionaire Gautam Adani-led Adani Group when it comes to expanding its presence in newer businesses.
The conglomerate on Tuesday made headlines when it announced indirectly acquiring a 29.18 per cent stake in New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV), one of India’s prominent media houses. The Group will launch an open offer for another 26 per cent stake of Rs 493 crore.
It was only a few months ago when Adani had forayed into the media business by acquiring a minority stake in Raghav Bahl’s Quintillion Business Media and in no time it would become a major player if the Group manages to raise its stake in NDTV to over 50%.
Experts believe the numbers and existing shareholding pattern of NDTV is in favour of Adani. LTS Investment Fund, which holds little less than 10 per cent stake in NDTV has invested nearly Rs 19,000 crore in a few Adani firms.
“LTS and other minority stakeholders may prefer Adani over the Roys (founder-promoter of NDTV) given sort of wealth the Group had created on bourses in past few years,” said a media analyst.
Adani’s stride in the media business comes after the Group shocked everyone by participating in 5G auction, which like the media business has a strong presence of rival billionaire Mukesh Ambani of Reliance.
Adani earlier this month paid Rs 212 crore for 5G spectrum, which will be used to create a digital infrastructure portfolio that includes data centres, another business it had entered recently.
“We can’t rule out the possibility of Adani eventually deciding to enter the consumer mobile segment, which might provide stiff competition to incumbents Jio and Bharti Airtel,” CreditSights said in a report on Tuesday.
The Fitch Group unit called Adani Group “deeply overleveraged,” as it continues to invest in existing businesses and foray into new ones, funded by debt. Post this report, shares of Adani Wilmar and Adani Power fell by up to 10% in `sessions.
Another big foray for the Group is the cement sector. Recently it acquired Holcim’s controlling stake in Ambuja Cement and ACC for USD 10.5 bn, becoming the nation’s second-largest cement maker overnight.
CreditSights noted that over the past 5 years, Adani Enterprise, being the incubator for the Group’s new businesses, has invested heavily in new growth sectors that include airports, cement, copper refining, data centres, green hydrogen, petrochemical refining, roads and solar cell manufacturing.