BILLIONAIRE Gautam Adani and his family plan to inject US$1 billion into the conglomerate’s renewable energy unit, people familiar with the matter said, as the group races to reach ambitious green goals while facing maturing bonds next year.

Adani Green Energy is aiming to issue preferential shares to the company’s founders for meeting expansion and refinancing needs, according to the people familiar with the discussions who didn’t want to be identified as the talks are private.

An Adani Group representative didn’t offer an immediate comment on the founders’ investment.

The company board will consider fundraising proposals on Dec 26, including evaluating options such as selling shares or convertible securities, it said in a filing on Wednesday (Dec 21) without sharing any more details.

“An equity raise could boost deleveraging and lower refinancing risk, though governance concerns may linger,” Sharon Chen, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, wrote in a Dec 15 note.

The company, which has a goal of 45 gigawatts of green energy capacity by 2030, also has bond maturities worth US$1.2 billion coming up next year and it has already begun outlining plans for repaying or refinancing those. It also raised a loan from eight banks earlier this month.

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All these efforts underscore Adani Group’s attempts to draw a line over damaging allegations of corporate fraud levied by Hindenburg Research in January that plunged the ports-to-power conglomerate into crisis for months.

Clawback mode

Despite strongly denying these allegations, Adani companies lost over US$150 billion in market value at one point. The conglomerate has since then been in clawback mode – it has lowered debt, got marque investors and secured US funding for its Sri Lanka port project – winning back investor and lender confidence.

The group’s stocks saw a relief rally in its shares last month after India’s top court said it won’t take media reports on the conglomerate as the “gospel truth” while reserving verdict on its probe into Hindenburg’s allegations. Adani Green, whose shares are still down 25 per cent this year, has jumped 55 per cent since the top court made these observations end of last month. BLOOMBERG