Till a month ago, state-owned LIC could claim that its share investments in the Adani Group were super-smart buys. It had poured a huge Rs 30,127 crore into the Adani Group but the market value of the shares it purchased had nearly tripled to a colossal Rs 81,000.
Then came the Hindenburg Research report and the share prices of the Adani Group companies cratered.
Now the LIC’s looking at massive notional losses. The worth of its shares in seven key listed Adani group companies (excluding Ambuja Cement and ACC) has fallen to Rs 26,862 crore, according to the Financial Express on Friday. That’s down 11 per cent from their purchase value.
LIC has also lost more than Rs 50,000 crore on the market gains made by its shares in the Adani Group companies before the Hindenburg report. (This assumes the LIC hasn’t been buying or selling the group’s shares since January 30 when it issued a statement on the book value of its investments in the Adani Group).
Now, LIC investment managers will have to take a call on whether to sell their current holdings, or possibly buy more if they regard Adani shares as now being under-priced. Any sell-off of its holding by LIC would grease the downward slide of Adani shares. Earlier this month, LIC chairman M. R. Kumar told CNBC that it was too soon to make any decisions about the future of the insurer’s Adani investments.
The insurer is the biggest domestic institutional shareholder in Adani Group companies. Some critics had regarded LIC’s investments in Adani shares as controversial due to the group’s heavy debt burden.
The insurance giant is believed to have lost close to Rs 20,000 crore on its investments in Adani Total Gas which has been one of the biggest losers amongst the group’s companies in the last one month.
The Adani Group has strenuously denied the charges levied by Hindenburg but efforts by the ports-to-energy conglomerate to reassure investors have failed to halt the meltdown in group company share prices.
LIC has also suffered an outsized loss of Rs 11,906 crore on its investments in Adani Enterprises, the Ahmedabad-based group’s flagship company.
Besides this, LIC has also racked up a steep loss of Rs 7,493 crore in Adani Transmission and losses of Rs 5,217 crore in Adani Ports, one of the group companies that has been less badly hit.
The life insurer has stakes of more than 1 per cent in these companies which have taken a heavy hit in recent weeks. In December it had a 4.23 per cent stake in Adani Enterprises and a 5.96 stake in Adani Total Gas and a 3.65 stake in Adani Transmission.
As well, LIC also has a huge 9.14 per cent stake in Adani Ports which has been faring less badly hit during the stock market rout in the last one month.
Adani Enterprises has slumped 61.29 per cent in the last one month and it fell further by Rs 70.65 on Friday. The lead company acts as an incubator for the group’s forays into newer industries like airports.
It has taken over six recently privatised airports including Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangalore, Ahmedabad and Guwahati where it is in charge of management. It has also bought Chhatrapati Shivaji airport in Mumbai and is building the Navi Mumbai airport.
