Gautam Adani is suspending activities at the £3.49 billion petrochemicals project in Mundra, Gujarat, as the billionaire’s business empire slows down spending following a shortseller attack, reports said.
In 2019, Adani had announced plans to foray into India’s petrochemicals sector with a factory in his home state of Gujarat. Two years later, he incorporated Mundra Petrochem and Adani Petrochemicals to set up feedstock (coal, petcoke, limestone, LPG, LNG, LPG, green fuels, etc) -based refineries and petrochemicals complexes. Both Mundra Petrochem and Adani Petrochemicals are 100% subsidiaries of his empire’s flagship Adani Enterprises.
According to the report, the business tycoon has decided to freeze the proposed one-million-tonne green PVC project due to unforeseen circumstances. Adani, according to reports, has asked vendors and suppliers to “suspend all activities and performance of all obligations” for Mundra Petrochem’s green PVC project “till further notice”. The report further said that the conglomerate’s management was re-evaluating various projects based on its future cash flow and finance.
This is the latest project that the Adani Group has re-evaluated since the shortseller’s attack. Earlier, it halted a £701.7 million deal to acquire DB Power and withdrew a £2 billion further public offering of Adani Enterprises.
In January, New York-based shortseller Hindenburg Research had accused the Adani group of using offshore shell companies to inflate its listed companies’ stock prices as well as of accounting fraud in its report. It also flagged concerns about the Adani Group’s £23 billion debt in the report. Adani has denied the allegations.