SINGAPORE: DBS Group has tightly managed exposure to India’s Adani group of companies, the chief executive of Southeast Asia’s largest bank said on Monday (February 13th).
DBS was part of a group of banks that financed Adani’s $10.5 billion acquisition of Holcim’s cement business in India last year. The Bank of Singapore provided funding of approximately S$1 billion (US$751 million).
“These are solid, cash-generating businesses, so we’re not concerned about exposure,” Chief Executive Piyush Gupta told reporters after DBS’s quarterly earnings release.
The cement industry has huge potential, given the growing market, Gupta said, “and so this exposure is quite tightly managed.”
New York-based short seller Hindenburg Research accused the Adani Group in a January 24 report of stock manipulation and misuse of offshore tax havens which she said obscured the extent of the Adani family’s shareholding in the group’s businesses.
The conglomerate, which has denied any wrongdoing, has since seen US$110 billion wipe out the value of its seven listed companies.