The value of Gautam Adani\u2019s business empire has crashed by more than US$ 50 billion last week since<\/p>\n
Hindenburg Research, a US firm that makes money from short selling, published a blistering report accusing it of fraud.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s Adani Group has denounced Hindenburg\u2019s allegations as \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201cmalicious,\u201d and it is considering legal action.<\/p>\n
But, the sharp sell-off in shares, which began Wednesday, accelerated Friday after US hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman said he found the short seller\u2019s report credible.<\/p>\n
Hindenburg Research published an investigation on Adani\u2019s conglomerate late on Tuesday, accusing it of \u201cbrazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.\u201d It said it had taken a short position in Adani Group companies, meaning it would benefit from a drop in their value.<\/p>\n
Shares of those companies \u2014 some of which had surged over 500 percent in the last few years \u2014 plunged when India\u2019s stock market opened Wednesday. The rout resumed Friday when trading resumed following a market holiday on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Shares of Adani Transmission, Adani Total Gas and Adani Green Energy \u2014 three of the group\u2019s seven listed companies were down 20 percent each on Friday, while shares of Adani Enterprises, the conglomerate\u2019s flagship company, fell 18 percent.\u00a0 Friday\u2019s losses wiped out almost US$ 39 billion in market value.\u00a0 According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Adani is still Asia\u2019s richest man with a personal fortune worth US$ 113 billion, US$ 30 billion more than fellow Indian entrepreneur Mukesh Ambani. Friday\u2019s losses will reduce that gap. Hindenburg said Thursday that it stood fully by its report and believed any legal action would be \u201cmeritless.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Adani is serious, it should also file suit in the US where we operate. We have a long list of documents we would demand in a legal discovery process,\u201d the short seller said in a post on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Hindenburg isn\u2019t the first research firm to express concern about the finances of Adani\u2019s sprawling empire, which has borrowed US$ 30 billion to become established in industries ranging from logistics to mining, and is aggressively growing in diverse sectors such as media, data centers, airports and cement.<\/p>\n
Ackman weighed into the debate on Twitter Thursday, saying he found the Hindenburg investigation \u201chighly credible and extremely well researched.\u201d
\n\u201cWe are not invested long or short in any of the Adani companies \u2026 nor have we done our own independent research,\u201d Ackman added.<\/p>\n
Hindenburg\u2019s claims come at a sensitive time. Adani Enterprises is aiming to raise 200 billion rupees (US$ 2.5 billion) by issuing new shares this month. The offer will close on Tuesday.\u00a0 A college dropout and a self-made industrialist, Adani is the world\u2019s fourth richest man, ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. He is also seen as a close ally of India\u2019s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n
The 60-year old tycoon founded the Adani group over 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
Courtesy: Daily Mirror<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The value of Gautam Adani\u2019s business empire has crashed by more than US$ 50…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12296,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12294\/revisions\/12296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}