CreditSights Finds Errors In Debt Report On Adani Group Firms: Report

CreditSights said it had discovered calculation errors in its recent debt report on two power and transmission companies controlled by world's third richest person, Gautam Adani, following a conversation with the management, news agency Reuters reported.

The debt research firm said in a report dated September 7 that it had spoken with Adani Group's finance and other executives and reconciled some figures for Adani Transmission and Adani Power.

Last month, CreditSights in a report said conglomerate is "deeply overleveraged" with the group predominantly using debt to invest aggressively across existing as well as new businesses, CreditSights, a Fitch Group unit, said on Tuesday.

In a report titled 'Adani Group: Deeply Overleveraged', CreditSights said, "In the worst-case scenario, overly ambitious debt-funded growth plans could eventually spiral into a massive debt trap, and possibly culminate into a distressed situation or default of one or more group companies."

"Management views that the group's leverage is at manageable levels, and that its expansion plans have not been mainly debt funded," CreditSights said about the group that has announced deals worth billions of dollars this year alone.

For Adani Transmission, CreditSights corrected its earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITDA), or core profit, estimate to 52 billion rupees ($652.45 million) from 42 billion rupees earlier. For Adani Power, it corrected its gross debt estimate to 489 billion rupees from 582 billion rupees.

It did not give the period for the estimates.

"These corrections did not change our investment recommendations," CreditSights said, adding that it, however, did not have formal recommendations on the two power and transmission companies.

The combined market value of the Adani Group's seven publicly traded companies - flagship Adani Enterprises, Adani Wilmar, Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission, Adani Total Gas and Adani Power - has increased about tenfold in the past three years to about $251 billion.