Of the $5 billion investment plan, promoter equity infusions would account for around a quarter, sources aware of the fund-raising for the proposed expansion told ET.
AdaniConneX plans to develop 1 GW of data centre capacity before 2030. It is in talks with several international banks to raise $1.2-1.4 billion in an offshore loan to ramp up growth plans that should be closed in the next couple of weeks.
Adani Group CFO, Jugeshinder Singh, had in an analyst call in November said the group will look at a $1.5-billion capital expenditure plan spread over three years, starting FY24.
The proposed expansion of the data centre business by the infrastructure conglomerate, which also owns and operates India’s biggest maritime and aviation transport facilities, come on the back of rapid acceleration in AI-led businesses and follow a Supreme Court ruling that said the Adani Group did not require additional investigation after US-based Hindenburg Research had accused it of ‘accounting fraud and stock manipulation’.
The Hindenburg report, published late January 2023, had sparked a decline of more than $150 billion in the market capitalisation of Adani Group stocks that have recovered since. The Adani Group, to be sure, has steadfastly refuted Hindenburg’s charges.TOP GLOBAL LENDERS
Sources said the offshore loan would likely be of five-year maturity, with several lenders, including Standard Chartered Bank, ING Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and MUFG Bank, being involved in the transaction.Standard Chartered Bank declined to comment. The other banks and Adani Enterprises did not respond to ET’s requests for comments on the matter.
“They (AdaniConneX) are looking to scale up debt financing in order to expand operations in the data centres, especially as the Noida and Hyderabad facilities have seen significant work, as has the second phase of the Chennai data centre,” a source said on the condition of anonymity.
The company currently has 17 MW live capacity in Chennai.
The firm has also tied up with global technology giants for 5-15 years as it seeks to achieve its aggressive growth targets for the data centre business. In June 2023, AdaniConnex had raised $213 million through a debt facility to finance the construction of the 67 MW data centre portfolio in Noida and Chennai.
Two months later, AdaniConnex had signed memoranda of understanding to acquire two wholly owned subsidiaries of Adani Power for Rs 540 crore.
In January, Bloomberg had reported that AdaniConneX was in talks with global lenders to raise $400 million through a five-year offshore loan.
India’s data centre industry is expected to double in the next three years, from about 0.9 Gigawatts (GW) in 2023 to 2 GW in 2026. Data localisation is expected to trigger compulsory investment in data centres, said a CareEdge Ratings report, which highlighted significant under-penetration of data centre capacity in India.
The country has a data centre capacity share of only 3% globally even as it generates 20% of the global data.
The additional capacity will need a capex of Rs 50,000 crore in the next three years, the report said.
AdaniConneX’s Chennai 1 campus provides colocation solutions to enterprises. The Noida data centre is being established with a 50 MW capacity to support strategic expansion needs of hyperscale customers, the firm had said in June last year.
The Chennai data centre, which began in 2022, aims to scale up to 33 MW. Apart from Hyderabad and Noida, AdaniConneX’s other data centres are located in Mumbai, Pune, and Vizag.
Earlier this month, EdgeConneX said it had secured $1.9 billion in sustainabilitylinked financing to support digital infrastructure expansion in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.