Adani Transmission to refinance more assets

Adani Transmission, which recently concluded a USD 2.6-billion refinancing, may look at a similar deleveraging arrangements for its ongoing projects once they are completed, a top company official said on Thursday.

In the past few months, the Gautam Adani-led company, which is heavily leveraged with a debt pile of Rs 18,000 crore, has concluded USD 2.6 billion of 'capital management', a part of which also included a 25.1 per cent stake sale in Adani Electricity Mumbai to Qatar Investment Authority for USD 452 million.

The Mumbai utility also raised USD 1 billion from a global bond sale, while Adani Transmission raised USD 310 million from private placement with US investors and another USD 500 million through foreign currency bonds to refinance the debt.

"We've done capital management for all our operational assets. Now it's only those assets which are under-construction (which are debt-funded). So, as and when they become operational, we may look at the possibility of refinancing them as well to optimise cost of funding," managing director Anil Sardana told reporters in a post-earnings concall.

He said the restructuring has helped in 100-150 bps of savings on interest, but the actual numbers on consolidated basis have to be tabulated, and the result of this will be visible in the coming quarters.

Earlier in the day, Adani Transmission reported a 32.53 per cent rise in consolidated net at Rs 203.67 crore for December quarter.

Income remained almost flat at Rs 2,835.72 crore compared to Rs 2,834.10 in the year-ago quarter, while total expenses were lower at Rs 2,477.75 crore, as against Rs 2,656.66 crore in December 2018.

During the quarter, the company received a letter of intent for a 400-Kv transmission project from Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company, under a tariff-based competitive bidding model.

For the next couple of years, we have a capex of around Rs 4,500 crore which is largely for the ongoing projects. Of this, Rs 3,000 crore are towards transmission business, while the rest is for distribution business," Sardana added.

He further said the company has orders worth over Rs 8,000 crore in hand, giving a revenue visibility for fiscals 2020 and 2021.

In a statement, Adani group chairman Gautam Adani said there is huge potential and growth opportunities in the transmission sector in the coming years, which will include acquisitions both in the domestic as well as overseas markets.

Adani Transmission is the largest transmission company in the private sector with a cumulative network of over 14,738 circuit km, of which over 11,477 ckm is operational.

The Adani counter closed over Rs 1.4 percent up at Rs 339.20 on the BSE, against a 0.25 percent fall in the Sensex.