MUMBAI, 29 JANUARY, 2023 (GPN): Amid speculation that Adani Enterprises Ltd may be forced to amend its Rs 20,000-crore follow-on public offer after a plunge in its stock price, the Ahmedabad-based company clarified that its FPO remains on schedule at the set issue price.

The flagship of the Adani Group had fixed the FPO at Rs 3,112-Rs 3,276 per share. However, on Friday, the first day of retail bidding for the FPO, the stock closed at Rs 2,762 on BSE. This led to speculation that it may revise the issue size or sale period.

The ₹20,000-crore FPO is open for subscription between January 27 and January 30 in the price band of ₹3112 to ₹3,276 per share.

“Adani Enterprises Limited’s Further Public Offer (FPO) is going as per schedule and the announced price-band. There is no change in either the schedule or the issue price,” said the group in a statement.

The AEL spokesperson further said, “All our stakeholders including bankers and investors have full faith in the FPO. We are extremely confident about the success of the FPO.”

The clarification came even as index provider MSCI said Saturday that it was monitoring the situation on the Adani Group and the “factors that may impact the eligibility of its securities for the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes”. All Adani Group stocks except Adani Wilmar are in the MSCI Index.

The Company stock tumbled 18% on Friday after a report by US-based researcher Hindenburg accused the Adani Group of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud” via a “vast labyrinth of offshore shell entities”. The group has dismissed the report as baseless.

On Friday, the FPO attracted just 1% of its targeted number of subscribers, raising concerns over whether the issue is in jeopardy.

Notably, during the subscription period for the anchor investors (Wednesday), the portion reserved for the category was oversubscribed by 1.5 times with the participation of 33 funds and institutional investors.

The issue opened for subscription for other categories on Friday and received bids for only one per cent of the shares put on sale under the ₹20,000-crore FPO on day 1.

The company received bids for of 4,70,160 shares against the issue size of 4,55,06,791 shares. The retail investor portion received bids for 3,99,880 shares against 2,29,08,464 shares on offer.

HNIs (non-institutional investors) bid for 60,456 shares against the reserved portion of 96.16 lakh shares, and QIBs have bought 2,656 shares of the 1.28 crore shares set aside for them. The issue will close on January 31.Ends