Adani Group secures $15 billion capital as US legal clouds clear

In one week, billionaire Gautam Adani has announced nearly $15 billion in investment commitments across its ports, mining and flagship businesses.

The string of announcements signals that the group helmed by Asia’s richest person is back on the front foot after drawing a line under its US regulatory and legal woes. It also shows the conglomerate is rapidly regaining ground with investors, including US-based banks who will now have a free hand to do business with one of India’s most important conglomerates.

Adani Enterprises Ltd., the parent of the ports-to-power group, upsized its share sale by 50% to 150 billion rupees ($1.6 billion) and saw marquee American investors like The Capital Group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and BlackRock Inc., Bloomberg News reported Friday citing people familiar with the matter.

The successful share sale, where the order book was fully filled up before the launch, was announced less than a day after the Ahmedabad-based company signed a pact with Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Co. to invest $11.5 billion in an aluminum project in the eastern India.

On Tuesday, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. announced a $1.4 billion deal with MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA in return for a 49% stake in its transshipment port in Vizhinjam.

“The Adani Group appears to have decisively shifted from defense to offense,” said Sunil Chandiramani, Mumbai-based chief executive officer of Nyka Advisory Services. The flurry of capital raising and strategic investments “indicates that global investors are once again willing to back the group’s long-term infrastructure story.”

An Adani Group representative did not immediately comment on this week’s deals spree.

Dropped charges

The investment announcements come weeks after a sweeping set of resolutions with the US authorities who had indicted the group’s founders — Gautam and his nephew, Sagar Adani — in November 2024 in a $250 million bribery scheme in India.

In May, the US Department of Justice moved to drop criminal charges against the Adanis in the bribery probe. This followed an agreement by Adani founders to pay a combined $18 million to settle a parallel civil fraud case with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Separately, Adani Enterprises agreed to pay $275 million to resolve an Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions probe. The Adanis and the company did not admit any wrongdoing.

Yet it’s not all smooth-sailing for the group.

The chief of the southern Indian state of Kerala, where Adani’s Vizhinjam port is located, has objected to MSC buying into the Adani-run terminal saying this was done without prior consultation with the state government.

The Swiss firm is under scrutiny after a May 2025 incident when one of its vessels capsized and spilled its fuel oil cargo off the Kerala coast.

This week’s investments reflect renewed investor confidence. Adani stocks were roiled by a scathing short-seller report in early 2023 and a US bribery probe in 2024 but a euphoric share rally this year has already added more than $40 billion to the group market value this year.

As a result, the combined market value of nine Adani Group firms has surged past $202 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

This has also flowed through in Gautam Adani’s net worth estimates. It has ballooned by almost $36 billion this year to little over $120 billion, toppling Mukesh Ambani from the no.1 spot in Asia wealth rankings, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

With the US legal overhang no longer dictating its growth agenda, Chandiramani says the group is stepping on the gas.

“This renewed expansion is significant because it gives Adani the financial firepower to accelerate its next phase of growth across infrastructure, logistics and manufacturing,” he said.

(By P R Sanjai)