Shares of Adani Ports and SEZ jumped 46 per cent to hit a high of Rs 596.75 in Tuesday’s trade from Friday’s 52-week low of Rs 394.95. Adani Ports is expected to report a decent set of quarterly results later today.
The company is one of the three Adani group companies to have repaid the loan and released the pledged shares. Several brokerage firms, including Credit Suisse, said the Adani Group stock, which is tracked by analysts, looks attractive after the recent correction. Add to this was the company’s recent January business update, which was healthy.
Meanwhile, there was a media report recently which suggested that the company may announce a share buyback, but the company later clarified that there were no such plans.
Adani Group flagship Adani Enterprises said its promoters will prepay a loan of $1,114 million against pledged shares. Along with the repayment, Adani Enterprises said it will issue 27.56 million Adani Green Energy shares, representing 3 per cent stake of the promoters.
“In light of the recent market volatility and in continuation of the promoters’ commitment to reduce the overall promoter leverage backed by the shares of the Adani listed company, we are pleased to inform that the promoters have decided to posted an amount to prepay $1,114 million before maturity,” a group spokesperson said in a statement.
PhillipCapital expects Adani Ports’ net profit to rise 12.4 per cent to Rs 1,661.90 crore in the December quarter from Rs 1,478.80 crore in the same quarter last year. Revenue grew by 29.80 per cent to Rs 4,930.10 crore as against Rs 3,797.10 crore in the same quarter last year. Ebitda increased by 24.4 percent from Rs. 2,430.60 crore to Rs. 3,022.60 crore.
Ebitda margin is expected to decline to 61.3 per cent in the December quarter, from 62.6 per cent in September and 64 per cent in the year-ago quarter. PhillipCapital expects container volumes to remain low. It anticipates low volumes and high operating costs. The brokerage estimates an effective tax rate of 17 per cent for the December quarter as against 9 per cent in the September quarter.
Amid fall in Adani Ports shares in the wake of Hindenburg report, Credit Suisse upgraded Adani Ports from neutral to outperform, citing attractive valuations. The brokerage said on January 31 that strong underlying trading with an uptrend proved negative support.
“We maintain our buy rating on the stock with an unchanged target price of Rs 920, an upside of 40 per cent from current levels. The stock is currently trading at 17 times FY24F PE which is at the lower end of the historical range of 17- 24x. We value the Ports business at 15x EV/Ebitda, while we value other businesses at 12x to 14x EV/Ebitda.’
Adani Ports handled 27.6 million metric tonnes of total cargo, a year-on-year growth of 11 per cent, the company said in a business update. During April 2022-January 2023, Adani Ports sees cargo volume of 280.5 MMT, a healthy growth of 8 per cent, the company said in a BSE filing on February 3.
Earlier, the stock was in news amid a media report which suggested that Adani Group may announce share buyback for Adani Ports and another group firm Ambuja Cements, but later the company denied such reports.