Adani Touts Financial Muscle, Shows Can Grow Without External Debt

Billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate on Monday touted the financial and credit details of its portfolio companies to investors, showcasing its robust profits and cash flows that can sustain growth without reliance on external debt.

The ports-to-energy conglomerate, which has been hit by an indictment in a US court against founder chairman Adani and two other executives for allegedly bribing Indian officials to secure solar power contracts, in a presentation to investors highlighted its consistently expanding profits and cash flows, which, over a period, had led to lowering dependence on debt for its growth ambitions.

Equity now accounts for almost two-thirds of its total asset creation, a stark contrast to five years ago. In the past six months, the group invested close to Rs 75,227 crore against a total debt increase of only Rs 16,882 crore.

A note was also shared with the investors, along with the presentation.

Outlining the group's liquidity position, the note said, "Adani portfolio is companies have sufficient liquidity to cover all debt servicing requirements for at least 12 months. As of September 30, 2024, Adani portfolio companies had a cash of Rs 53,024 crore, which was close to 21 per cent of its total gross debt outstanding."

This amount, it said, was sufficient to cover the next 28 months of debt servicing requirement.

Growth Without Debt

In the past, the group had announced plans to invest more than Rs 8 lakh crore ($100 billion) across portfolio companies in the next 10 years.

Fund Flows from Operations (FFO) or cash profits stood at Rs 58,908 crore for the past 12 months and grew at over 30 per cent during the last five years. On this basis, even after assuming no growth, the group will be able to invest Rs 5.9 lakh crore only from its internal cash accruals over the next 10 years, leaving very little dependency on external debt.

Further, at the portfolio level, there is very low debt gearing of 2.46x -- which means it has massive headroom for debt, according to the presentation.

Other highlights from the presentation included EBITDA (earnings before interest tax and depreciation) for the past 12 months, which it said was highly stable and, hence, predictable due to its infrastructure projects, grew by 17 per cent to Rs 83,440 crore.

Existing annual cash flows alone can pay the entire debt in three years.

Gross assets or investments increased by Rs 75,227 crore against a total debt increase of only Rs 16,882 crore. The asset base has now increased to Rs 5.5 lakh crore.

Average cost of borrowing is at 8.2 per cent, the lowest in five years, due to upgrades in ratings across group companies, it said.

The Adani Group's long-term debt from domestic banks is Rs 94,400 crore. This stands against a cash balance of Rs 53,024 crore, most of which is parked with Indian banks.

Borrowings from global banks is 27 per cent of total debt.