(Corrects fourth paragraph to show 15 billion rupees was the
total paid to SBI MF and Aditya Birla Sun Life MF, and not only
to SBI MF, after Adani Ports clarifies)
MUMBAI, Feb 21 (Reuters) - India's Adani Ports and
Special Economic Zone , a group company of the
beleaguered Adani Group, plans to prepay 10 billion rupees
($120.8 million) in commercial papers maturing in March, a
company spokesperson said.
"This part prepayment is from the existing cash balance and
funds generated from the business operations," the spokesperson
said in an emailed response late on Monday.
Adani Ports has commercial papers worth 20 billion rupees
due to mature in March, data from information service provider
Prime Database showed. It had cash and cash equivalents of 62.57
billion rupees as of Dec. 31, as per its latest quarterly
report.
The company has also paid 10 billion rupees to SBI Mutual
Fund and 5 billion rupees to Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund
on commercial papers that matured on Monday, as scheduled, Adani
Ports said.
Last week, Reuters reported Adani Enterprises and Adani
Ports are likely to repay their short-term commercial papers
debt, instead of rolling them over.
Adani Ports said in an analysts' call earlier this month
that it is considering repaying debt of about 50 billion rupees
in fiscal 24, without specifying which bonds it would repay.
This, it said, would improve its net debt to EBITDA
(earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and
amortization) ratio to about 2.5 from more than 3 currently.
" ... Our main objective is that we are generating cash. We
want to use that money to repay the debt after meeting all the
growth capex," D Muthukumaran, chief financial officer of Adani
Ports, had said in the call on Feb. 7.
($1 = 82.7760 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bhakti Tambe; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
bhakti.rajendratambe.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net Twiter: ))
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