TotalEnergies pauses investments in India's Adani Group after bribery charges

By YP Rajesh and America Hernandez

NEW DELHI/PARIS (Reuters) - French oil major TotalEnergies halted on Monday investments into Adani Group, after the Indian ports-to-power conglomerate was engulfed in a crisis over an alleged multi-million-dollar bribery scheme.

The move is the first major fallout from U.S. authorities' decision to charge Adani's billionaire chairman Gautam Adani and seven other people with agreeing to pay around $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials.

TotalEnergies, whose financial exposure to Adani firms is estimated at between $4 billion and $5 billion by analysts at Bernstein Research, said it had not been made aware of the investigation into the alleged corruption scheme.

While TotalEnergies' plans for future investment in Adani Group firms were not known, the announcement of a pause adds to the criticism the $143-billion Indian conglomerate is facing about disclosure standards, which may lead to closer scrutiny by other investors.

"Until such time when the accusations against the Adani group individuals and their consequences have been clarified, TotalEnergies will not make any new financial contribution as part of its investments in the Adani group of companies," the French company said.

TotalEnergies, which has a 20% stake and a seat on the board of the company at the centre of the case, Adani Green Energy Ltd, said it rejects corruption in any form.

The U.S. prosecutors' bribery charges related to alleged payments to obtain contracts that could yield $2 billion of profit over 20 years. The charges also included making misleading statements to the public despite being made aware of the U.S. investigation in 2023.

The Adani Group has said the accusations as well as those levelled by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a parallel civil case are baseless and that it will seek "all possible legal recourse".

Adani did not immediately respond to a request for comment on TotalEnergies' statement.

Shares of Adani Green Energy plunged more than 11% on Monday after the TotalEnergies statement before recovering to close 7.9% lower, while Adani Total Gas, in which the French company owns a 37.4% stake, ended down 1.4%.

India's parliament was suspended on Monday after disruption by lawmakers demanding a discussion on the allegations while the crisis continued to hurt the group founded by Adani, 62, one of the world's richest people.

On Sunday, a U.S. development agency said it was reviewing the impact of the bribery allegations on its agreement to lend more than $550 million to a Sri Lankan port development backed by the Adani group.

The agency said that no funds have yet been disbursed under the loan commitment.

PARLIAMENT DISRUPTED

The Adani group's projects and businesses span the globe and some of them have come under the spotlight since the indictment in the U.S.

Last week, Kenyan President William Ruto cancelled a procurement process that had been expected to award control of the country's main airport to Adani.

In Bangladesh, a panel examining power generation contracts, including one with Adani Power, urged the interim government to hire a global legal firm to ensure a thorough and transparent investigation into previous deals.

In India, opposition parties, who have consistently targeted Adani for what they say is his proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, disrupted both houses of parliament seeking a discussion on the Adani allegations.

"The first step the government should take is to have a detailed discussion on the Adani saga which has the potential of tarnishing India’s image at the global stage," Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the main opposition Congress party, posted on X.

Jagdeep Dhankhar, the Vice President of India and the chairman of the upper house, said he had received 13 notices from lawmakers demanding a discussion on the Adani issue but he could not allow them as they did not conform to the rules.

Dhankhar suspended the chamber for the day as lawmakers insisted on their demand, with similar scenes playing out in the lower house.

Indian opposition parties have in the past accused Modi's government of protecting Gautam Adani and his businesses, charges both deny.

Modi’s opponents say he has longstanding ties with Adani, going back nearly two decades to when Modi was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, from where Adani also comes.

They accuse the government of favouring the group in business deals, charges the government has rejected as "wild allegations".

The government has not commented on the indictment but Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that it is for the Adani Group to deal with and defend itself and that the law will take its course.

MIXED DAY FOR ADANI STOCKS

Outside parliament, dozens of members and supporters of the youth wing of Congress marched in protest, carrying placards demanding Adani's arrest and shouting slogans linking him to Modi.

The crisis is the second in two years to hit the Adani group, which was last year accused by short seller Hindenburg Research of improperly using offshore tax havens. The company denied those claims.

The disruption in parliament came as investors cut their exposure to the conglomerate, depressing Adani dollar bond prices.

In Asian trade on Monday, some of the most liquid debts, issued by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone fell between 1 cent and 2 cents, with similar selling in Adani Transmission debt.

(Reporting by America Hernandez in Paris, Tom Westbrook and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore and YP Rajesh in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Sethuraman NR, Sudipto Ganguly, Indranil Sarkar, Anushree Fadnavis, Tassilo Hummel, Makini Brice and Dominique Patton; Writing by Scott Murdoch, YP Rajesh and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Lincoln Feast and Toby Chopra)