Adani Power Ltd. had 8.1% of its total outstanding shares worth about $1 billion traded in five blocks on Wednesday as the ports-to-power conglomerate deepened its efforts to recover from a short-seller attack.
(Bloomberg) — Adani Power Ltd. had 8.1% of its total outstanding shares worth about $1 billion traded in five blocks on Wednesday as the ports-to-power conglomerate deepened its efforts to recover from a short-seller attack.
The buyers and sellers were not immediately known, but 310.9 million shares changed hands, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company’s stock fell as much as 4.1% after the bunched trades to 274.4 rupees ($3.30) and based on the average price, the deals are worth $1 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.
An Adani family entity is likely the seller while a global fund probably bought the stock, CNBC-TV18 reported, citing unnamed sources.
The block deals come after the Qatar Investment Authority bought a roughly 2.7% stake in billionaire Gautam Adani’s listed green energy business earlier this month as the tycoon has spent months attempting to repair the damage from Hindenburg Research’s January broadside.
The report by the US short-seller alleged that Adani Group engaged in years-long corporate fraud and stock price manipulation, charges that the company has repeatedly denied. It nevertheless fueled a major stock and bond sell off from which conglomerate has only partly recovered from.
“Sale of more shares in Adani companies could help meet the group’s large funding needs and fund growth, assuming governance concerns persist and lead to weakened funding access,” Sharon Chen, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, wrote in a research note earlier on Wednesday. Adani’s family “could raise more than $15 billion while maintaining control of its key listed entities, based on share prices as of Aug. 14,” she said.
–With assistance from Ashutosh Joshi, Chiranjivi Chakraborty, Debjit Chakraborty and Devidutta Tripathy.
(Updates with analyst comment in final paragraph.)
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