Adani Stocks Trade Mixed After MSCI Maintains Status Quo In Group's Securities For August Review

MSCI, the global stock market index, has decided to be 'status quo' on Adani Group and its associated securities due to uncertainty with the free float in these shares. Apart from this, the MSCI announced its August review which will come into effect from September 1 and it added eight stocks in MSCI India Index while excluding one. That would be Adani Group-backed ACC which will exit the MSCI India Index as of the close of August 31, 2023. Accordingly, Adani stocks will be in focus on Friday on exchanges.

The Gautam Adani-backed port-to-transmission empire has 10 stocks including cement and media business that traded on BSE and NSE.

In the opening bell, at the time of writing, the flagship firm Adani Enterprises dropped by 0.7% to Rs 2535 apiece on BSE, while Adani Ports dipped by 0.5% to Rs 798.95 apiece, and Adani Green traded flat but in red at Rs 973.70 apiece. Also, Ambuja Cements stock inched lower to trade at Rs 455.95 apiece, but ACC shares dipped by 1.24% to trade at Rs 1935.25 apiece.

Among the gainers were, Adani Transmission (+0.4%), Adani Total Gas (+0.54%), Adani Wilmar (+3%), and NDTV (+0.4).

In its latest notification, MSCI said, "In light of continued uncertainty with the free float of Adani Group and associated securities within the MSCI ACWI IMI Indexes, MSCI will not implement any changes in the Foreign Inclusion Factor (FIF) or Number of Shares (NOS) for the related securities as part of the August 2023 Index Review and until otherwise announced."

It added, "Also, until otherwise announced, MSCI will review the treatment of non-neutral corporate events for the affected securities on a case-by-case basis and potentially defer their implementation. The treatment of any such non-neutral corporate event would be announced to all clients with advance notice through regular Index announcements. For the avoidance of doubt, MSCI will continue implementing any neutral corporate events including ones requiring the application of a Price Adjustment Factor (PAF)."

Finally, MSCI concluded that it welcomes feedback from all market participants and investors on these issues and will communicate further as necessary or appropriate.

On May 31, 2023, MSCI deleted two Adani securities namely Adani Total Gas and Adani Transmission effective June 01, 2023.

On Thursday, MSCI added 8 stocks from India, the second largest addition for the Global Standard Index August review after China which saw the addition of 29 stocks. However, the index deleted 1 stock from India and that would be the cement arm of Adani Group, ACC.

With effect from September 31, 2023, Ashok Leyland, Astral, Cummins India Kirloskar, HDFC Asset Management, IDFC First Bank, Power Finance Corporation, REC, and Supreme Industries will be added to the MSCI India Index, while ACC will be deleted.

Uncertainty in Adani shares under the MSCI index escalated after the bombshell report by US-based short seller Hindenburg in late January this year, which led to one of the biggest market routs of more than 100 billion dollars on exchanges in the first quarter of 2023. However, Adani shares have been recovering since the Q2 of the year, and have recovered more than 50% of the market value before Hindenburg's report.