The financial woes of beleaguered telecom company Reliance Communications have soured investor sentiment towards its parent company Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG).
The seven listed companies belonging to the group suffered a hammering on the bourses on Wednesday. They have been facing a constant erosion of share prices as investors fear a spillover of the Reliance Communications crisis to others.
Reliance Communications owes Rs 490 billion (US$ 7.50 billion) to lenders. Recently, it failed to pay a coupon on its 2020 dollar notes. Its share prices have eroded 41% this month and 70% in 2017.
On Tuesday, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal issued a notice to Reliance Communications in response to a petition filed by Manipal Technologies Ltd that sought dues of about Rs 27.4 million (US$ 42,000) for supplying biometric fingerprint scanners.
Earlier, Ericsson and Tech Mahindra had claimed that their dues of Rs 11.5 billion (US$ 180 million) and Rs 82 million (US$ 1.25 million) respectively have not been paid by the company.
Another troubled asset of ADAG is Reliance Infrastructure which operates power utility in Mumbai. It has a debt of Rs 265 billion (US$ 4.05 billion) and market capitalization below Rs 110 billion (US$ 1.68 billion).
The Anil Ambani group’s seven companies have a combined market capitalization of Rs 557.9 billion (US$ 8.54 billion), less than half the debt of Rs 1.18 trillion (US$ 18.06 billion) at the end of March.
Ambani is banking on asset sales across verticals to ease the loan payment burden. The company is also seeking to convert part of their debt to equity for 51% control of the stressed company under a ‘zero write-off’ plan. It has also entered into a standstill agreement with lenders till December 2018.