Adani may sell stake in Ambuja Cement for $450 million to reduce debt: Report
NEW DELHI: Gautam Adani, the promoter of the embattled Adani Group, is seeking to sell a stake in Ambuja Cement for about $450 million, according to reports. Adani is said to have made a formal request to international lenders to sell 4% to 5% in Ambuja Cements.
The stake sale in Ambuja, as per reports, is being initiated as the group seeks to rebuild investor confidence and erase concerns about its high debt by pre-paying loans. The confidence of investors and lenders in Adani Group has taken a big hit after the scathing report published by the US short-seller Hindenburg Research.
Clarification ought from Adani Group on this didn’t invite any response. The speculated stake sale comes more than a week after US-based GQG Partners bought shares worth Rs 15,446 crore ($1.87 billion) in four Adani Group firms: Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises through block deals. The share purchase translates to 2.5-4.1% equity holdings in four Adani companies.
Following this investment by GQG, Adani Group said it has prepaid the Rs 7,374 crore ($902 million) share-backed financing made by various international and domestic financial institutions, about two years ahead of its latest maturity date.
The conglomerate, whose net debt stood at about Rs 1.96 lakh crore as of December 2022, has pledged to prepay all share-backed remaining loans by the end of March 2023. Adani Group had last year acquired Holcim AG’s cement businesses in India - Ambuja and ACC Ltd - for $10.5 billion, its largest-ever acquisition. This single acquisition had made the Group county’s second largest cement manufacturer overnight. Holcim had sold its 63.19% stake in Ambuja Cements Ltd and 54.53% stake in
ACC (of which 50.05% stake is held through Ambuja Cements) to Adani Group.
Seeks investor confidence
Stake sale in Ambuja, as per reports, is being initiated as the group seeks to rebuild investor confidence and erase concerns about its high debt by pre-paying loans