(Reuters) – India’s Adani Power posted a smaller quarterly core profit on Wednesday due to a sharp drop in power demand and the thermal power producer also said it would raise 50 billion rupees ($578 million) by selling shares to institutional investors.
The company, part of billionaire Gautam Adani-led Adani Group, said besides raising money through the qualified institutional placement, it would also double the limit it could raise via non-convertible debentures to 110 billion rupees.
Adani Power reported its continuing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell 5.4% to 47.86 billion rupees in the third quarter.
India’s power generation grew at only 3% from October to December, compared to a 12% rise a year earlier. Overall, the power generation growth last year was the slowest since the COVID-19 pandemic.
That was largely due to a sharp slowdown in power demand, which led to a 26% drop in the average market clearing price on the Indian Energy Exchange last quarter.
Adani Power’s continuing revenue from operations, which exclude past recoveries, fell by 3.4% to 126.92 billion rupees.
Meanwhile, Adani Power said it responded to all the notices sent by India’s market regulator in the previous quarters related to the allegedly incorrectly categorising certain entities’ shareholding.
It said the Adani Group’s independent review found no non-compliance or irregularities and that there were no pending regulatory or adjudication proceedings, except the market regulator’s notices.
Adani Power’s results come after U.S. authorities accused founder Gautam Adani and top executives of paying $265 million in bribes for power contracts, claims the Adani group has denied. ($1 = 86.5270 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das and Sethuraman NR in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
