Why bankers continue to bet on Adani’s infrastructure plans

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Editor's note: The Adani group positions itself as a champion of new infrastructure. Undeterred by the costs involved, it is happy to rack up debt with this goal in mind. The Ahmedabad-based group’s consolidated borrowings rose about 40% by the end of the 2021-22 at Rs 2.2 lakh crore, as against Rs 1.57 lakh crore in 2020-21. This makes it India’s fourth largest corporate borrower, behind the Tata group (Rs 2.89 lakh crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 2.66 lakh crore) and the Aditya Birla Group (Rs 2.29 lakh crore).  We wrote in September last year about the Adani group’s mountain of debt and how as its infrastructure ambitions grew, the conglomerate loaded up on bonds.  Since then, investors and bankers have continued to gravitate towards it. Its unblemished repayment record, strong share capital base, rich cash flow and the ability to execute projects make it a favourite of local and global bankers alike.  “A lot of the credit goes to Rajiv Nayar, who was with Citibank for 30 years before joining Adani as its chief financial officer. He has a great reputation with …