Gautam Adani is planning to sell a 4 per cent to 5 per cent stake in Ambuja Cement for around $450 million.
Mumbai:The Adani Group, which acquired Holcim AG’s cement businesses in India – Ambuja Cements and ACC – for $10.5 billion last year. India’s biggest-ever infrastructure and materials acquisition and made Adani India’s second-biggest cement player overnight. According to a report last month, Adani is in talks to repay the $500 million bridge loan, which was maturing in March. The money was taken to buy controlling stake in cement companies ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements Ltd.
A consortium of 14 international banks, led by Barclay’s, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank, provided $4.5 billion in financing to buy the cement assets of Holcim Limited. Now Adani made a formal request to international lenders to sell 4% to 5% in Ambuja, his cement business. Adani, which owns 63 per cent of Ambuja Cement.
Adani has addressed worries about its debt levels by highlighting its strong record of never defaulting and the ability of its operating companies to generate enough cash to easily meet interest payments.
Holcim closed the deal with Adani Group on Friday by selling its entire stake in Ambuja Cements at ₹385 per share and in ACC at ₹2,300 per share. The cash proceeds aggregated to 6.4 billion dollars for Holcim.
Gautam Adani and his family have prepaid all borrowings backed by his conglomerate Adani Group’s shares, senior executives told investors at a meeting in London.
Ambuja Cements closed down 1.7%, while ACC ended down 0.7% on Friday.
