Major fallout for India’s Adani Group after US bribery indictment

NEW DELHI: Some nations and investors have either scrapped deals or halted investments in the Adani Group, after the United States indicted its billionaire chairman Gautam Adani for alleged bribery and fraud to win contracts for a group company, Adani Green Energy.

Adani Group has denied all the accusations as “baseless”, but its 10 listed entities have lost about $33 billion in market value since the indictment, with Adani Green the hardest hit, losing about $9.7 billion in market value.

Here are key details of the conglomerate’s stalled deals and other fallout:

Ratings agency Moody’s cut the outlook on the ratings of seven Adani entities to ‘negative’ from ‘stable,’ citing the US indictment of Chairman Gautam Adani and others could weaken the group’s access to funding and increase its capital costs.

Meanwhile, Fitch earlier put some Adani Group bonds on watch for a possible downgrade, also citing the US indictment.

India’s Andhra Pradesh state is likely to suspend a power purchase deal linked to Adani Group due to the U.S. indictment, two state government sources told Reuters. The southern state will also ask the federal government and the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), which awards power supply contracts to companies like Adani, to investigate the charges.

French oil major TotalEnergies TTEF.PAwill not make any more investments in the Adani Group. Total has a 20% stake in Adani Green Energy ADNA.NS, putting its financial exposure in Adani firms at between $4 billion and $5 billion, Bernstein Research estimates.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corp is reviewing the impact of the indictment against Gautam Adani on the agency’s plan to lend $550 million for a port development project in Sri Lanka partly owned by Adani Group. Last November, the agency said it would provide financing for the port terminal project in the key city of Colombo.

Sri Lanka is studying the accusations against Adani Group and will consider all aspects of its projects in the island nation. The government is taking the concerns seriously but has made no final decision yet.

Kenya has canceled a procurement process of more than $2 billion that was expected to give control of its main airport to the Adani Group. The deal was to add a second runway at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport and upgrade the passenger terminal. Kenya also scrapped a separate 30-year, $736-million public-private partnership, signed by Adani Energy Solutions ADAI.NS with its energy ministry in October.

Bangladesh has set up a committee to investigate its power generation contracts signed during the tenure of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, one of them with Adani Power ADAN.NS.