With the Adani group shares falling on a daily basis, Gautam Adani has slipped to 29th spot in the Bloomberg billionaire list, with $42.7 billion fortune. To be sure, Adani, 60, was worth $150 billion in September 2022. But the Hindenburg Research allegation jolted group shares, eroding his personal wealth by over $107 billion.
Adani group stocks have erased over Rs 11 lakh crore in combined market capitalisation (m-cap). The combined group m-cap has fallen below $100 billion level from $232 billion as on January 24. Three of Adani group shares namely Adani Total Gas, Adani Green, Adani Transmission are in fact top losers on BSE since January 24, the day Hindenburg Research alleged fraud and accounts manipulations by Adani Group companies.
A total of 88 questions were raised by Hindenburg Research in its scathing report. Out of them, 65 were related to the listed companies, six were related to media reports and rest were on family offices, said Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh.
Singh, a speaker at Kotak Chasing Growth - 2023 Conference, said a total of 65 questions were not something the group didn’t disclose previously.
Watch: Hindenburg Effect: Gautam Adani drops to 29th spot in Rich List, his net worth, Adani Group and more
While the Adani group denied the allegations by the short seller, the group shares have continued to fall since then.
With a drop of 78.5 per cent, shares Adani Total Gas plunged the most in the 21 trading sessions. The scrip stood at Rs 834.95 on Wednesday from Rs 3,885.45 on January 24. Shares of Adani Green Energy and Adani Transmission sank 71.8 per cent and 71.4 per cent, respectively, during the same period.
Post the recent stock rout, the group's flagship Adani Enterprises commands Rs 1,60,153.06 crore and is the 30th most valued stock on BSE. The scrip has lost Rs 2.32 lakh crore in market value since January 24. Adani Ports is now the second most valued Adani group stock. Its mcap as of Wednesday stood at Rs 1,18,127.20 crore (37th most valued on BSE) against Rs 1,64,354 crore as of January 24. They are the only two group stocks with an m-cap of over Rs 1 lakh crore.
It was Adani Total Gas, which was the most-valued Adani group firm as on January 24, with a mcap of Rs 4,27,326 crore. As of Wednesday's closing levels, its m-cap stood at Rs 91,828.64 crore. A total of six Adani stocks commanded a market cap of over Rs 1 lakh crore as of January 24.
Singh said the group's gross debt stands at $30 billion at the gross level and $26 billion at the net level. Only $750 million of it is availed for general corporate terms; borrowing is only for assets, he said. He said the group leverage has been on a declining trend, with net debt/Ebitda declining from 4.1 times in FY2019 to 3.1 times in FY2022. Even after acquiring Holcim in FY2023, net debt/Ebitda remains at 3.1 times, he said. Singh said the group was constantly deleveraging and will bring it to 2.2 times over time.
Also read: Adani Total Gas, Adani Green, Adani Transmission: Meet the worst BSE performers since January 24