Adani Enterprises Q3 net down 14%

Its consolidated net sales,however,rose 60 per cent to Rs 9,014.73 crore during Q3,vis-a-vis Rs 5,640.42 crore in third quarter of last fiscal.

The company’s interest and finance charges rose over 3-fold to Rs 725.65 crore,largely on account of Rs 335-crore forex loss incurred during the quarter.

Adani announced its board’s decision to exit the real estate holding company (Adani Infra Development Pvt Ltd).

“The board has approved to divest its real estate business primarily to focus on our three main verticals power,port and mining,and also to infuse additional liquidity into the system,” Adani Enterprises Chief Financial Officer Devang Desai told reporters here.

“AE will exit from the real estate business. We will hive off the stake in the holding company (Adani Infra) for which the process will start soon,” he said.

The Group has invested over Rs 2,000 crore in the real estate business. It has undertaken development of around 40 million sq ft of residential and commercial space in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The company expects its coal mining operations in India to commence from middle of this year.

“We expect our first mining operations in India to commence by middle of this year (in early part of Q1,FY’13) at Parsa Kante coal blocks in Chhattisgarh,” Desai said.

AE has formed a joint venture,Parsa Kante Collieries (PKC) with Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam (RRVUN),for developing coal blocks in Chattishgarh.

The two coal blocks are estimated to have reserves of over 452 MT. Parsa East and Kante Basan coal blocks have received preliminary nod to mine coal up to 15 MMTPA at peak level.

The Adani Group holds 74 per cent in the JV,while the rest 26 per cent is with RRVUN.

“Both our mine development operations and the Australian mining are progressing as per the schedule,and this would become large verticals for us in the ensuing years,” he said.

The Ahmedabad-based Group has completed land acquisition for its Carmichael mines in Australia and is awaiting environmental clearances to start mining operations there.

“Our mine in Australia has potential of 60 million tonne of coal in the first phase,which can go up to 100 MT. Our target is to start mining operations there by 2014-end,” Desai said.

During the quarter under review,Adani Group commissioned a 40 MW solar power plant in Gujarat’s Kutch district. The plant’s capacity will be expanded to 100 MW in the future,a company statement said.

Besides,Adani Power,a Group firm,generated 3,381 million units of electricity in the quarter. The power firm has a total generation capacity of 2,640 MW.