From debt to equity: Why are India's 'national champions' changing tack?

Hindenburg Research’s short-selling attack on the Adani group has had the unintended but salutary effect of making wannabe “national champions” (large business groups with plans to invest heavily in line with government plans and incentives) more conscious than before of the dangers of fuelling their ambitions with excessive debt. Gautam Adani, Hindenburg’s target, has been busy these past few weeks re-building confidence in his group by hastily repaying debt. The Vedanta group’s Anil Agarwal, on his part, talks now of achieving zero-debt status by repaying over Rs 1 trillion in the “medium term”. Mukesh Ambani did that three years ago with a rush of equity deals that helped him pay off debt totalling Rs 1.6 trillion. But Mr Adani’s debt mountain