Adani in talks for first major debt refinancing after Hindenburg

By P R Sanjai, Saikat Das and Baiju Kalesh

Adani Group is in talks with lenders, including global banks, as it seeks to refinance up to $3.8 billion of a loan facility taken for its acquisition of Ambuja Cements Ltd. last year, said people familiar with the matter.

The ports-to-power conglomerate owned by Indian tycoon Gautam Adani is mulling whether to convert the original loan into debt with a longer maturity period and has started talking to banks individually about that plan, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private.

The effort is a significant test of whether global credit lines will open up to the company again after US short-seller Hindenburg accused the Adani Group of widespread corporate malfeasance in January. Adani has denied the allegations.

Adani is expecting to conclude the process within three to four months and most of the existing lenders are expected to participate, the people said. A spokesperson for Adani didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Banks such as Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Standard Chartered Plc and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. are in talks to participate in the refinancing deal, while some of the lenders have gone to their respective international credit teams for approval for the arrangement, the people said. Barclays, Deutsche, MUFG and Standard Chartered declined to comment. The deal is not yet finalized and may not proceed.

If the plan moves ahead, it would be the latest sign of the conglomerate returning to business-as-usual after months of damage control following Hindenburg’s scathing broadside that at one point shaved off over $150 billion from the company’s stocks.

A panel of experts appointed by the Supreme Court also said in a report last month that there’s no regulatory failure or wrongdoing behind the wild swings of Adani stocks. Still, another verdict is expected from India’s securities watchdog in August after finishing its probe into the short-seller’s allegations against Adani Group.

Adani’s purchase of Holcim AG’s Indian cement assets last year made the billionaire’s conglomerate the country’s second-largest producer of construction material. To finance that deal, bridge loans maturing in 2023 and 2024 were taken out by Mauritius-domiciled Endeavour Trade & Investment, the Adani Group vehicle that acquired Holcim’s cement business.