Adani Enterprises FPO subscribed 1% on opening day as shares plummet over 18%

A follow on share sale of Adani group's flagship company was on Friday subscribed just one per cent on the opening day as shares plunged after a scathing report by a US short seller. Against an offer of 4.55 crore shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd, only 4.7 lakh were subscribed, according to information available from the BSE.

The FPO closes on January 31.

Source: BSE

Adani Enterprises fell almost 20 per cent to below the offer price of its secondary sale as all the seven listed companies of the conglomerate took a beating in the aftermath of Hindenberg Reserach alleged that the group was "engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades".

That report came on a day the follow on public offer (FPO) opened for institutional investors on Wednesday.

Adani Enterprises is selling shares in a price band of Rs 3,112 to Rs 3,276. On Friday, its share price closed at Rs 2,762.15 on the BSE.

Retail investors put in bids for close to 4 lakh shares against 2.29 crore shares reserved for them while qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) sought just 2,656 shares against 1.28 crore reserved for them. Non-institutional investors sought 60,456 shares against an offer of 96.16 lakh shares.

On Wednesday, Adani Enterprises raised Rs 5,985 crore from anchor investors.

The company allotted 1.82 crore equity shares to 33 funds at Rs 3,276 apiece, taking the transaction size to Rs 5,985 crore, according to a circular uploaded on the BSE website.

Foreign investors who picked up the shares included Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, BNP Paribas Arbitrage, Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs Investment (Mauritius) Ltd, Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte,

Nomura Singapore Ltd and Citigroup Global Markets Mauritius.

A slew of domestic institutional investors, including LIC, SBI Life Insurance Company, HDFC Life Insurance Company and State Bank Of India Employees Pension Fund, also participated in the anchor book.

Out of the Rs 20,000-crore proceeds from the FPO, Rs 10,869 crore will be used for green hydrogen projects, work at the existing airports and construction of a greenfield expressway.

An amount of Rs 4,165 crore will be utilised for repayment of debt taken by its airports, road and solar project subsidiaries.

Adani Enterprises is India's largest listed business incubator and breeds businesses in four core industry sectors -- energy and utility, transportation and logistics, consumer, and primary industry.

The current business portfolio includes green hydrogen ecosystem, data centres, airports, digital, mining, defence and industrial manufacturing.