New Delhi (TIP)-The Adani Group has repaid a $500 million bridge loan due Thursday, according to people with knowledge of the matter, adding to a slew of other payments as the Indian conglomerate works to restore confidence in its financial health after a scathing short seller report. The money was released to lenders on Tuesday, March 9, the people said, asking not to be identified as the details are private. Some banks had balked at refinancing the debt following a report from Hindenburg Research late-January that sent Adani assets tumbling, Bloomberg News reported in February.
The empire led by billionaire Gautam Adani has since pre-paid about $2 billion of share-backed loans, made bond repayments on time and won another $1.9 billion investment from star investor Rajiv Jain of GQG Partners. That’s helped pare losses in the group’s market value to around $124 billion from as much as $153 billion. Global banks had lent Adani $4.5 billion to finance the purchase of Holcim Ltd. cement assets last year, and a portion of this was due March 9. The next tranche of the loan comes due in 2024, one of the people said.
Adani rout puts spotlight back on Mauritius as it aims to shed ‘tax haven’ image
The tiny island of Mauritius spent years trying to clean up its image as a base for murky money launderers and shell firms. The short-seller allegations against billionaire Gautam Adani are once again reviving questions about the country’s role as a tax haven for India’s tycoons.
In a report late January that sent Adani stocks on a $153 billion downward spiral, Hindenburg Research said that entities controlled by the tycoon’s brother, Vinod, or his associates used Mauritius as a conduit for money laundering and share-price manipulation. Though the report mentioned a “vast labyrinth” of shell companies from the Caribbean to the United Arab Emirates, it pinpointed offshore firms in Mauritius as having played a pivotal part.
The US-based short seller said 38 firms connected to Vinod were domiciled in the tropical island, located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Madagascar. Hindenburg claims some were used to reroute money from India that was then used to buy shares in the group, and inflate their stock prices back home.