Adani group to prepay USD 130 million debt to boost investor confidence

Billionaire Gautam Adani's group said it will prepay USD 130 million of debt as it looks to boost investor confidence post being targeted by a US short-seller.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, the ports company of the Adani Group, had last month floated a tender to buy back as much as USD 130 million of its July 2024 bonds and similar amounts in each of the next four as it looked to regain investor confidence by showing that its liquidity position is comfortable.

In a stock exchange filing, APSEZ said an aggregae principal amount of USD 412.7 million was validly tendered. Since the principal amount of notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn on or prior to the early tender date (of May 8) exceeded the maximum acceptance amount of USD 130 million in aggregate principal amount of the outstanding notes, the company will accept such notes for purchase subject to the proration factor of 34.2649 per cent, it said.

The purpose of the tender offer is to partly prepay the company's near-term debt maturities and to convey the comfortable liquidity position, it had said in a statement last month.

The company had engaged Barclays Bank, DBS Bank, Emirates NBD Bank PJSC, First Abu Dhabi Bank, PJSC, MUFG Securities Asia Singapore Branch, SMBC Nikko Securities (Hong Kong) and Standard Chartered Bank to serve as dealer managers for the offer.