Adani Ports, Transmission and Green Energy pledge shares to SBI

Adani Ports and SEZ, Adani Transmission, and Adani Green Energy, have pledged shares to SBI, which has an exposure of Rs 27,000 crore to the port to power conglomerate. The move to pledge shares to the lender for Adani's flagship firm Adani Enterprises, comes a day after NSE removed Adani Ports and Ambuja Cement from its surveillance framework

The SBI spokesperson has explained that, "As part of the Standby LC facility of USD 300 mio, provided by SBI for Adani group's Carmichael project in Australia, there is an additional collateral by way of pledge of shares of 3 group companies. The required collateral coverage of 140% is reviewed as at the end of each month and any shortfall on account of MTM is required to be topped up. There have been a top up each in the months of June and July 2022 and the third such top up was done on 8th Feb 2023 after a review as on 31st Jan 2023."

"Being the Security Trustee, SBI Cap Trustee Company, is required to file the same with SEBI and it is being complied with by them each time whenever there is a change in number of shares pledged."

With this latest tranche, the % of shares that is pledged towards this project, aggregates to 1.06%, 1.00% and 0.55% of equity shares of Adani Green, Adani Ports and Adani Transmission, respectively."

"It is clarified that such a share pledge is only as additional collateral security over and above the project assets and no additional finance is extended by SBI against such shares pledged"

Ever since the Hindenburg report was made public, Adani's shares have nosedived and the group has lost more than $100 billion in market cap. The MSCI has stripped some of its firms of free float status, which means they won't be freely available for trading on the market. Its securities have also been turned down by Citigroup and Credit Suisse as collateral, and its partner in France has put a major green hydrogen project on hold pending an audit.