Explained: How Washington Post's article on LIC-Adani link churns out misleading, false narratives

New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS) Ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections and the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament, a US-based media outlet published an article alleging that the Government of India “pressured” LIC to invest up to $3.9 billion in the Adani Group, including $568 million (Rs 5,000 crore) in May 2025.

The article contains multiple false information, factual inaccuracies, misleading claims, and false narratives. The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has already issued an official rebuttal to the Washington Post article, categorically describing it as “false, baseless, and far from the truth”.

Former LIC Chairman Siddhartha Mohanty has also denounced the report, stating: “A misleading narrative has been created by The Washington Post against LIC’s investments in the Adani Group, alleging government interference. I categorically affirm that the Government never interferes, directly or indirectly, in any investment decision of LIC. I call upon The Washington Post to withdraw the unverified content from all platforms and refrain from publishing such baseless allegations.”

According to people close to the matter, the article is based on wrong assumptions that Adani Ports & SEZ needed money to refinance its dues and states that “Adani’s ports subsidiary needed to raise roughly $585 million in a bond issue to refinance existing debt”.

No such refinancing was due. As clearly stated in Adani Ports & SEZ’s official media release on May 30 this year, the funds raised from LIC were earmarked for the proposed buyback of bonds maturing between 2027 and 2029 -- not for refinancing any existing debt.

Immediately after, in July, Adani Ports launched a tender offer to buy back up to $450 million of outstanding US$ bonds, all maturing between 2027 and 2029.

The second paragraph of the article incorrectly states, “India’s second richest man, whose net worth hovers around $90 billion, had been charged with bribery and fraud last year by the US authorities, and several major American and European banks he had looked to for loans were hesitant to help.”

The fact is that several American and European institutions have invested in Adani in recent months, all of which is public.

In April 2025, BlackRock invested in Adani’s private entities. In June 2025, Apollo’s Athene Life led a US$750 million (Rs 6,650 crore) investment in Adani’s Mumbai Airport, in which several insurers participated.

In September 2025, Leading Dutch Bank -- Rabobank -- and DZ Bank, Germany’s second largest bank based on assets, invested in Adani’s Green Assets.

The opening statement in the article that debt was "piling up quickly this spring" is false.

Adani’s debt numbers or balance sheets are not disclosed for the April to June 2025 quarter, as Indian companies follow the practice of releasing balance sheets only half-yearly -- hence, this claim is unverified.

Further, the debt of Adani Ports & SEZ, the company in reference, has only reduced its debt in FY25 over FY24 to Rs 36,422 crore. The leverage of not a single Adani group company has increased in FY2025.

As leverage is a financial figure, it can be easily verified from the companies' balance sheets, but this was not done. Instead, a dramatic, dire situation is created in the opening statement to prejudice the reader.

Further, for FY25, Adani Portfolio’s EBITDA was Rs 89,218 crore, and the total long-term debt was Rs 2.65 lakh crore, and the cash balance was Rs 53,843 crore. This simply means that Adani can knock off the entire debt in less than three years, if it pauses investment.

Adani Ports & SEZ is rated ‘AAA’ by all four leading domestic rating agencies -- the highest rating achievable by any Indian corporate, reflecting the strongest credit quality and utmost safety for lenders, including LIC.

Further, the ‘BBB–’ rating by Fitch for Adani Ports’ subsidiary and Adani’s two green units is equivalent to India’s sovereign rating, the highest possible international rating any Indian entity can hold, and LIC can invest in.

To describe such investments as “too risky for a low-risk lender like LIC” is factually baseless and misrepresents both Adani Ports’ financial strength and LIC’s prudent investment framework, according to people familiar with the matter.

The article has quoted Tim Buckley stating, “Why should he sell them if he can actually just get the government of India to keep on funding him?” he said. “It’s the Indian people that have to keep bailing him out.”

The fact is that Adani has never required any bailout from the Indian people, the government or its institutions. Adani Ports’ over 75 per cent debt is foreign debt, and the remaining is from a mix of domestic institutions, including some of the top mutual funds and banks.

This is not the first time LIC, which has an AUM of over Rs 55 lakh crore, has been the sole subscriber to an issuance. LIC has also solely subscribed to 10-year+ issuances by institutions like Vedanta (AA rated), L&T Finance (AAA rated), NIIF Infra Fund (AAA rated), Shriram Finance Ltd (AA+ Rated), India Infradebt Limited (AAA rated) and Arka Fincap Ltd. (AA rated).

In November 2023, Reliance Industries successfully raised Rs 20,000 crore through a 10-year domestic bond issue via private placement, marking the largest such sale by an Indian non-financial firm at the time, and the issue was indeed heavily oversubscribed wherein with LIC subscribing the lion’s share of Rs 12,000 crore.

LIC is receiving 1.26 per cent additional spread over a 15-year GSEC bond on the underlying Rs 5,000 crore loan to APSEZ’s AAA issuance, translating to additional Rs 950 crore profit over the period of tenure of the bond in comparison to a similar-rated 15-year Government Bond. (Total yield on APSEZ AAA issuance -- 7.65 per cent, while 15-year G-Sec Yield offered 6.49 per cent yield).

Debt from LIC is less than 3 per cent of Adani’s total debt. Fifty per cent of the debt is from overseas investors, including investors from the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and has some of the best names globally in the investor’s list.

Not just LIC, but several other top institutions, including ICICI Prudential, Nippon and SBI mutual funds; HDFC and ICICI banks; LIC of India, infrastructure-focused funds like NIIF Infra, Aseem Infra, and IIFCL and top provident funds have invested in the bond offerings by Adani over the past six months.

The fact is that LIC’s debt exposure to Adani is less than 0.3 per cent of its overall debt portfolio. On the equity side, LIC invested Rs 30,127 crore in Adani companies, the value of which has almost doubled over the past four years.

Also, Adani is not LIC’s largest holding -- Reliance, Tata Group, ITC, SBI (SBI Bank and SBI Cards), L&T, HDFC and Infosys are.

--IANS

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