2024-10-01 22:05:03 :
Billionaire Gautam Adani’s flagship company plans to launch a stock sale as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, marking a major move after a scathing short-selling report in 2023 derailed previous plans. Return to public stock markets.
Adani Enterprises Ltd. plans to raise about $1.3 billion through a so-called qualified institutional placement and expects to launch the process as early as the week starting Oct. 7, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity because the information is not yet public.
Terms of the sale could include a greenshoe option, which the board could decide on by the end of the week, one of the people said. Another person said that many domestic institutional investors have shown strong interest in the stock issuance.
Adani Enterprises received board approval in May to raise up to 166 billion rupees ($2 billion) through various means, including selling shares to institutions.
Adani Group representatives had no immediate comment. Deliberations are ongoing and details of the stock sale, including its size and timing, could change, people familiar with the matter said.
The flagship company’s funding comes amid investor frenzy, with India becoming the busiest IPO market. It would also mark another major milestone for the media-to-mining conglomerate, which was rocked by allegations of widespread corporate fraud in January 2023 by US short seller Hindenburg Research .
Although Adani denied the claims, a plunge in its share price wiped more than $150 billion off the group’s market value and forced it to cancel a $2.5 billion share sale last February.
The group has since resumed its growth spree by acquiring African ports, spending $10 billion to build a slicing plant and acquiring an Indian cement maker. A successful share sale in Adani Enterprises, the group’s new business incubator, would be a major vote of confidence for investors in the billionaire.
ICICI Securities Ltd., Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and SBI Capital Markets Ltd. are helping Adani Enterprises with the stock sale, Bloomberg News reported in August, citing people familiar with the matter.
Adani Enterprises shares have risen nearly 12% this year, lagging the benchmark NSE Nifty 50 index’s 18.7% gain, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The stock remains about 7% below where it was at the time of the Hindenburg report.
The deal follows Adani Energy Solutions Ltd.’s $1 billion stock sale to institutional investors in August.
The group, helmed by Asia’s second-richest man, and its joint venture partner Wilmar International Ltd. also plan to sell a 13% stake in consumer goods maker Adani Wilmar Ltd. to reduce the founder’s stake and comply with India’s shareholding regulations.
—With help from Baiju Kalesh.
More stories like this can be found at Bloomberg.com
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