India's Adani Group to raise Rs16,600 crore to expand business, plans e-commerce ventures

Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) on Tuesday announced to raise Rs 16,600 crore via qualified institutional placement (QIP) or other permissible mode in one or more tranches and in accordance with the applicable laws, as it aims to aggressively expand its businesses.

The board of directors at the flagship company of the Adani Group approved the raising of funds by way of issuance of such a number of equity shares having a face value of Re1 each of the company.

"The board has inter-alia approved raising of funds… for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 16,600 crore or an equivalent amount thereof by way of qualified institutional placement (QIP) or other permissible mode in one or more tranches," the company said in a regulatory filing.

On Monday, Adani Energy Solutions said its board approved a fundraise of up to Rs 12,500 crore through QIP or other modes, in one or more tranches.

The Adani Group has raised nearly $6 billion from top investors since the beginning of last year.

AEL registered a 32 per cent increase in consolidated EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) i at Rs13,237 crore in FY24, while profit before tax (PBT) surged 56 per cent to Rs 5,640 crore.

The emerging core infra businesses of Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL) ecosystem, airports and roads made significant strides in their operational performance, the company said earlier this month.

According to the company, the contribution of these businesses to the overall EBITDA increased to 45 per cent for FY24, compared to 40 per cent in FY23.

For the fourth quarter (Q4) of FY24, AEL reported EBITDA at Rs 3,646 crore, as compared to Rs 3,974 crore in Q4 FY23.

E-commerce ventures

In another development, India's Adani Group has been considering an application for a licence to operate on the country's public digital payments network and is in talks with banks to finalise plans for a co-branded credit card, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The plans to dial up consumer businesses came as billionaire Gautam Adani's ports-to-power conglomerate mulled spending $84 billion in infrastructure over the next decade.

If approved, the group will enter India's burgeoning digital payments market and compete with incumbents Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe.

India's payments market is expected to reach $814.43 billion in 2029, from $357.51 billion in 2024, a report by Mordor Intelligence

showed.

With a 48.9% market share, PhonePe is the largest UPI app in India, April data showed, followed by Google Pay with a 37.7% share.

The Adani Group did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.

The group is also in talks to offer online shopping through India's government-backed public e-commerce platform, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the report said.

If finalised, the services will be available through Adani's consumer app Adani One, which was launched in December 2022, the report added.

The conglomerate has been making efforts to recover from a January 2023 report by US short-seller Hindenburg that triggered a sell-off in the group's listed shares.

Agencies