Adani in Talks With Lenders for $600 Million Offshore Loan

By Bloomberg

May 06, 2024

image is BloomburgMedia_SD1PBSDWRGG100_06-05-2024_12-00-06_638505504000000000.jpg

Gas pipes sit near a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tank under construction at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (Tepco) Futtsu gas-fired thermal power plant in Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on Monday, Sept. 10, 2018. Japan will maintain a target for clean energy to account for as much as 24 percent of the countrys power mix by 2030, according to a long-term plan approved by the Cabinet in July.

(Bloomberg) --

Billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate is seeking an offshore loan of about $600 million to refinance existing debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

The loan will be raised by Dhamra LNG Terminal Pvt., a unit of Adani Total Pvt., the people said, asking not be named because the details are private. The debt’s tenor could range from three to five years, with the pricing likely linked to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, they said.

The port-to-power group is discussing the planned transaction with lenders including Credit Agricole, DBS Bank Ltd., BNP Paribas, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., and Mizuho Bank Ltd., two of the people said. Adani is likely to conclude the borrowing in the next two months.

Adani Group did not immediately respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment.

The conglomerate is regaining the confidence of investors since being targeted early last year by US short seller Hindenburg Research. In March, the group saw robust demand for its first public bond sale since the shortseller crisis.

Lending to Adani Total, an equal venture between Adani Group and TotalEnergies, entails a relatively higher risk appetite compared to refinancing debt of a standalone company, according to Srinath Sridharan, an independent policy researcher and a corporate advisor.

“The fundraising spree only points to growing lenders’ comfort about the group,” he said.

With the Hindenburg episode behind it, the Adani Group has doubled down on its infrastructure projects and plans to spend as much as $100 billion over the next decade on its green transition.

That aspiration dovetails with India’s ambitions to become a net zero carbon nation by 2070 and curb its reliance on oil and coal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is trying to increase the country’s ability to import LNG to lift the share of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030 from about 7% now.

(Updates with analyst comment in sixth paragraph)

By P R Sanjai , Saikat Das