By Dhwani Pandya and Nishit Navin
(Reuters) -Adani Enterprises aims to raise $500 million through a share sale it launched on Wednesday, two sources with direct knowledge said, as billionaire Gautam Adani’s flagship firm seeks to shore up capital to fund expenses and repay debt.
The share sale marks the company’s return to equity fund-raising after it scrapped a $2.5 billion plan in February last year in the wake of a short-seller report accusing Adani Group of misusing offshore tax havens and stock manipulation. The company has denied the allegations.
Adani Enterprises in May approved raising up to $2 billion through modes including a so-called Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) method used by listed Indian companies to raise funds from large institutions.
It has set the floor price of the share sale at 3,117.475 rupees apiece, a 1.2% discount to the stock’s Wednesday’s closing price, it said in an exchange filing.
The company has a greenshoe option to raise more funds depending on investor demand, one of the sources said.
Adani did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
This will be the second share sale by an Adani Group company this year after its power transmission unit raised $1 billion in July with investments from sovereign wealth funds from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as Indian mutual funds.
Adani Enterprises plans to use proceeds of the share sale to fund new energy projects, set up a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant and to repay debt at its airport unit, according to an exchange notice.
Moneycontrol had reported that Adani Enterprises was in talks with Gulf funds including Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Qatar Investment Authority, as well as GQG Partners, for the share sale.
Jefferies India, ICICI Securities and SBI Capital Markets are the bankers for the issue.
Last month, the firm also raised around 8 billion rupees in its first-ever retail bond sale that saw strong demand.
($1 = 83.9340 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Varun Hebbalalu and Nishit Navin in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Devika Syamnath)
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