Adani's realty unit in talks to buy debt-laden Ozone group, says report

Billionaire Gautam Adani’s realty unit is in advanced talks to take over beleaguered Indian developer Ozone Group at an enterprise value of about $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Adani Realty Ltd. is seeking to take over the Bengaluru-based Ozone, which has an outstanding debt of more than 60 billion rupees ($790 million), one of the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. Ozone has ongoing projects in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, according to information available on its website.

A spokesman for Adani group declined to comment while Ozone group representatives didn’t respond to an email seeking comments.

As part of this transaction, Adani’s 10-year-old developer arm will be taking over the debt of Ozone which has been struggling to repay creditors. Ozone has delivered 13.5 million square feet of real estate projects so far and has 48 million square feet in various stages of development, it said on its website.

No final decision has been reached, and the discussions could still fall apart, the people said.

The closely-held realty arm of the ports-to-power group, helmed by Asia’s second richest person, will look for more stressed real estate companies and land parcels, they said, to rapidly scale up the business. Adani Realty has been developing residential and commercial projects of more than 69 million square feet across Indian cities of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Kochi and Mundra, according to to the group website.

--With assistance from Suvashree Ghosh.