A single tweet by an Indian politician wiped off nearly $2 billion off Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s companies’ market capital in one day.
Adani Group companies on Wednesday took a severe beating, collectively losing Rs 9,300 crore ($ 1.86 billion) in share value after Subramanian Swamy, a member of parliament from India’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party called Adani boss Gautam Adani the “biggest NPA trapeze artiste in PSUs”.
Shares of Adani Power, Adani Ports & SEZ, Adani Enterprises and Adani Transmission took a dive of6-8 per cent.
A former union minister of India, Mr Swany is well-known for taking on big corporations and politicians. He tweeted on Wednesday and warned he could file a public interest litigation against the group.
“The biggest NPA [Non-performing assets] trapeze artiste in PSUs [public sector undertakings] is Gautam Adani. It is time he is made accountable or a PIL [Public Interest Litigation] is inevitable,” Mr Swamy tweeted.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Mr Swamy said: “Information came to me that he [Gautam Adani] may be having as much as Rs 72,000 crore [$1.45 billion] in non-performing assets. This will be clear only after investigation. That’s why I raised this question.”
Reacting to Swamy's comments, the Adani Group said it has diligently and regularly serviced all its debt.
"The singular critical test for debt is its regular servicing -- something which the Adani Group has implemented diligently, since its inception."
In a statement, the company said that the group's dependence on public sector banks for long-term borrowings was less than 50 per cent, and it was regularly serviced.
"Given our rating track record, different sources of debt are available to the Group, ranging from international bonds, ECB loans, domestic bonds, loans from private sector as well as public sector banks in India.
The group also said it has a history of implementing world-scale infrastructure projects within a short time and the lowest cost quartile.
"Capital intensive projects necessarily require debt capital," it said.
