Adani Group plans leverage cut, sees no dollar bond issue until 2027

By Selcuk Gokoluk

  Indian conglomerate Adani Group aims to cut its leverage over the next five years and has no plans to issue bonds in international capital markets until 2027. 

The group’s next foreign currency bond sale will likely be a dollar bond, said group Chief Financial Officer Jugeshinder Singh. Issuances in the domestic market as well as Reg D issuances, where borrowers can sell securities without having to register them with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, will continue. 

The billionaire Gautam Adani-led group, which is among the largest Indian issuers of dollar bonds, will work to pare its leverage until 2030, Singh said, speaking in an interview in London.  

The measures would reinforce an effort by Adani to introduce more financial discipline to its balance sheet after bond spreads widened in the wake of a short-seller report in 2023 and an investigation into an alleged bribery scheme by the US Department of Justice the following year, which the group has denied. India’s securities market regulator on Thursday cleared the group’s founder of some allegations raised by the short-seller. 

Singh said Adani “aims to reduce the leverage level of portfolio companies to a level similar to established utilities in OECD member countries than emerging markets levels.” Adani is cutting leverage because it has become “counterproductive” to hold too much cash on its balance sheet, especially after positive rating actions.  

Even though the group’s net debt has risen in recent years, a faster level of earnings growth has driven down leverage from a peak in the 2022 fiscal year.  

Net debt was about 2.37 trillion rupees ($26.9 billion) for the 2025 fiscal year, while the net debt to EBITDA ratio, a measure of leverage, was 2.63 times, according to a credit update note published by the conglomerate in August. That’s down from 3.81 times three years prior. Earlier this year, the ports unit began buying back some of its outstanding debt.  

Still, Adani will have to balance its effort to cut leverage with ambitious capital spending plans and a recent spate of private debt deals from lenders including Apollo Global Management Inc., Metlife Inc., and BlackRock Inc. 

At the annual meeting of the flagship company earlier this year, founder Gautam Adani touted plans to spend between $15 and $20 billion annually over the next five years. In November, Adani said in a post on X that the group would invest $10 billion in US energy security and infrastructure projects. 

Singh said the group doesn’t need to borrow the finance the $10 billion investment plans in the U.S. as the expenditure is within the group’s ‘cash envelope,’ referring to cash generated by companies, and it represents a small portion of the group’s broader spending plans over the next five to six years. 

--With assistance from Divya Patil.