Adani Enterprises share prices plummet

IT’S an interesting tale Tim Buckley tells looking at the falling Adani Enterprises share price, but there’s no happy ending for the Carmichael coal project.

IT'S an interesting tale Tim Buckley tells looking at the falling Adani Enterprises share price, but there's no happy ending for the Carmichael coal project.

On May 22 the share price closed at 792.20, but by July 23 had fallen to 84.75 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India.

Mr Buckley is the Director of Energy Finance Studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and said this was predominately due to a demerger which split the former Adani Enterprises into four separate companies, including Adani Ports and Adani Power.

Adani Enterprises was left with an equity capitalisation of $US1.5 billion, far from the $A10 billion needed to fund the Carmichael project.

Although this move benefited shareholders, Mr Buckley said the Carmichael coal project was left the scapegoat.

"The Adani restructuring crystallised significant value for the Adani Family, but the Carmichael coal proposal was in IEEFA's view collateral damage for the greater good of the Indian parent," he said.

"Adani Enterprises no longer has the financial capacity to fund an $A10 billion greenfield coal project in the Galilee.

"I would suggest the financial markets are also increasingly showing they are unlikely to want to fund this proposal either."

He said the 15% share price decline in the year to date also reflected the trends in global coal markets.

With ports, power grids and other assets no longer making up the Adani Enterprises portfolio, Mr Buckley said their share price would increasingly reflect these global coal trends.

But despite Adani's troubles, Morgan's financial planner John Shephard said BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto's low share prices provided opportunity for investors.

"BHP is more diversified, while Rio relies a bit more on iron ore," he said.

"At this point there is no real alternative when making steel to metallurgical coal, so BHP is still ramping up production."

Stock market

•  Adani Enterprises: down 15% year to date on NSE.
•  Peabody Energy US share price: down 85% YTD.
•  BHP Billiton: July 23, $25.5. The 52 week high was $36.004 on August 19, 2014. The 52 week low was $24.009 on January 15, 2014.
•  Rio Tinto: July 23, $51.200. The 52 week high was $67.890 on August 12, 2014. The 52 week low was $49.130 on July 9, 2014.

Originally published as Adani Enterprises share prices plummet