Adani Group sitting on a Rs72,000-cr NPA bubble: Subramanian Swamy
07 Mar 2018
Almost $12 billion (Rs72,000 crore) of Adani's estimated fortune of $14 billion needs to go towards repaying creditors, mostly state-run banks, to its non-performing assets, according to BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.
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| Subramanian Swamy (left) and Gautam Adani |
The 55-year-old Gautam Adani's wealth doubled in just one year to $14 billion (over Rs91,000 crore), according to the Harun Global Rich List 2018 published a few days ago. The Ahmedabad-based business tycoon, whose wealth stood at $6 billion in 2014, when Narendra Modi became the country's prime minister, added another $1 billion to his wealth in the three years beginning 2014. But, in 2017-18, the Harun Rich List says his fortune surged to $14 billion.
Subramanian Swamy, the 78-year-old Harvard-educated economist and a former union minister, refuses to be impressed by Haroon's figures, but says he has information that makes him believe that as much as Rs72,000 crore of Adani's projected wealth is in NPA and this needs to be investigated.
"The biggest NPA trapeze artiste in PSUs (public sector banks) is Gautam Adani. It is time he is made accountable or a PIL is inevitable," Swamy tweeted on early Tuesday morning.
Adani runs India's largest private port the Mundra Port and has interests in power generation, transmission, coal trading, mining, oil and gas among other areas.
"I tweeted that he (Gautam Adani) seems to be like a trapeze artiste. Information came to me that he may be having as much as Rs72,000 crore in NPA. This will be clear only after investigation.That's why I raised this question. As far as corruption is considered, party has no role," ANI quoted Swami as saying.
Citing Bloomberg data, new agency IANS has put the Adani Group's total debt at Rs99,181.09 crore, which include Adani Power's Rs47,609.43 crore debt, Adani Transmission's Rs8,356.07 crore debt, Adani Enterprises' Rs22,424.44 crore debt and Adani Ports' Rs 20,791.15 crore debt.
Adani Group in a statement, claimed that Rs34000 crore of its long-term borrowings was being "regularly serviced". "The singular critical test for debt is its regular servicing - something which the Adani Group has implemented diligently, since its inception," the company said in an official statement.
"Adani Group has created world class assets and aggregate net asset block of Indian operations stands at over Rs110,000 crore. Aggregate net worth of the listed entities stands at over Rs40,000 crore and aggregate EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) stands at Rs24,000 crore," the statement noted.
