Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone is planning loan repayments and pre-payments totalling Rs 5,000 crore in 2023-24, Karan Adani, wholetime director and CEO of the company, said in a statement on Tuesday.“For FY24, APSEZ is targeting Ebitda of Rs 14,500-15,000 crore and expects the net debt to Ebitda ratio declining to 2.5X by March 2024. This is after factoring a capex of Rs 4,000-4,500 crore and loan repayments of Rs 5,000 crore, which also include some prepayments,” Adani said.
The announcement comes a day after the Adani Group said that its promoters will prepay $1.114 billion for the release of share-backed loans ahead of maturity in September 2024, including for 12% in APSEZ. The group said that action is being taken in light of the recent market volatility.
APSEZ’s net debt to Ebitda was at around 3.2x as of December 2022. Ebitda guidance for the current financial year is Rs 12,200-12,600 crore, while capital expenditure for FY23 is expected to close at `8,600 crore. The company’s estimated net debt at the end of FY23 is expected to be at Rs 44,000 crore while for the end of FY24, as per the management’s guidance, it is expected to be at Rs 38,600 crore.
Cash surplus generated through operations during FY24 would be used to re-pay/pre-pay loans, APSEZ said in a presentation. Its cash and cash equivalent stood at Rs 6,257 crore as of December 2022. Though APSEZ reported a fall in net profit for the December quarter year-on-year, the announcement of repayment of loans saw the company’s share prices go up by 1.33% to close at Rs 553.30.
“Our business fundamentals remain strong and we are well positioned to continue on our growth trajectory while being able to also deleverage APSEZ balance sheet,” Adani added. During the last quarter, APSEZ reassessed its risk management approach towards foreign currency exposure. The company has applied active hedging and designation of the bonds against natural hedge from future revenues. “The company has a natural hedge i.e sufficient future dollar linked revenue to meet the maturity date cash flows on debt in a financial year,” APSEZ added.APSEZ handled 252.9 MMT of cargo, which is an 8% growth over last year.
The growth in cargo volume was led by coal (+23% increase), liquid (excluding crude) (+8% increase) and containers (+5% increase).During the nine months ended December, APSEZ handled 24% of total cargo on India ports. Mundra continued to be the largest container handling port with 4.88 million TEUs versus 4.45 million TEUs managed by JNPT during 9M FY23.
