Bank of Baroda, one of India’s largest state-backed lenders, has stated that it is willing to consider lending additional funds to the Adani Group despite the Hindenburg Research report, which accused the ports-to-energy conglomerate of improper use of tax havens and stock manipulation.
CEO and managing director, Sanjiv Chadha, said that the Bank of Baroda will extend loans to the conglomerate if it meets the lender’s underwriting standards. “I’m not concerned about the market volatility around Adani stocks,” he added.
Bank of Baroda will consider extending loans to the group for its Dharavi redevelopment project after Adani Group bid 50.7 billion rupees for the project to remodel the slum last year, Chadha said as quoted by Bloomberg news.
“This is subject to an extended due diligence and depends upon concentration limits,” he said.
Earlier, Chadha said that the Bank of Baroda’s exposure to the Adani Group is about a quarter of what is permitted under the central bank’s framework.
The short seller Hindenburg report that alleged accounting fraud and stock manipulation by the Adani group, came just as a ₹20,000 crore follow-on share sale of the conglomerate’s flagship firm, Adani Enterprises, opened.
After the report, the Adani group’s listed firm lost about US$ 125 billion in market value in three weeks. Some recovery has been seen in the last couple of days.
Opposition parties, citing the report, attacked the government, alleging PM Modi aided the Adani group’s rise. Meanwhile, Adani Group has maintained that its debt of ₹1.96 lakh crore as of September 2022 was balanced with its assets and the revenues all the businesses are generating.
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