© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: The Adani Group logo is seen on the facade of one of the buildings on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, April 13, 2021. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo/File Photo
(This September 7 story holds true for Fitch Group, not the rating agency Fitch, in the first paragraph.)
By Krishna N. Das
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – CreditSights, a division of Fitch Group, said it discovered a calculation error in its recent debt report on two power and transmission companies led by India’s richest man, Gautam Adani. , control, after the conversation with the management.
A report by debt research firm CreditSights late last month called the group an “overspending” and flagged other risks that have sent shares of many Adani companies down.
7 report, CreditSights said that it spoke with Adani Group’s finance department and other executives and collated some of the figures for Adani Transmission and Adani Power.
“(Adani’s) Management believes that the group’s leverage is at a manageable level and that its expansion plans are not primarily debt-funded,” CreditSights said.
But CreditSights said on Thursday that it remained concerned about the overall debt levels of the Adani group.
For the Adani group as a whole, “we have kept our original financial calculations and credit ratios unchanged, which leaves us concerned about Adani Group’s leverage,” CreditSights said in a statement. email sent to Reuters.
The Adani Group on Thursday said its companies’ debt ratios “continue to be stable and in line with the industry standards of their respective sectors”. Adani also said that over the past decade, the team has worked to improve “debt metrics through our capital management strategy.”
Shares of Adani Transmission and Adani Power closed up about 1% on Thursday, while five other group companies ended lower in a broadly positive Mumbai market.
For Adani Transmission, CreditSights adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortization (EBITDA), or core profit, estimated to Rs 52 billion ($652.45 million) from Rs 42 billion previously. As for Adani Power, it has revised its total debt estimate from Rs 582 billion to Rs 489 billion.
It does not give time periods for estimates.
The combined market value of the seven publicly traded companies of the Adani Group – leading businesses Adani, Adani Wilmar, Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission, Adani Total Gas and Adani Power – has increased by approximately 10 times over the past three years to about 251 billion USD .
(1 dollar = 79,7000 Indian rupees)
