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Journalism of Courage
Billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani Thursday slipped three ranks on the Forbes list of the world’s richest after losing over 5.7 per cent of his wealth. This comes a day after shares of Adani Group companies lost over Rs 80,000 crore in market capitalisation after New York-based investor research firm Hindenburg Research, which specialises in short selling, accused Adani’s companies of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.
Hindenburg Research disclosed in the report that it has “taken a short position in Adani Group Companies through US-traded bonds and non-Indian-traded derivative instruments”. The report has been published just two days before the group’s flagship Adani Enterprises follow-on public offer of Rs 20,000 crore is scheduled to open for subscription on January 27.
The Adani Group shares tanked by up to 8 per cent, and the benchmark Sensex closed 1.27 per cent or 774 points down at 60,205.06 and the NSE Nifty Index fell 226 points to close at 17,891.95 with all-round selling by foreign and local investors dampening market sentiments.
In a statement, the Adani Group said, “The timing of the report’s publication clearly betrays a brazen, mala fide intention to undermine the Adani Group’s reputation with the principal objective of damaging the upcoming FPO from Adani Enterprises, the biggest FPO ever in India. The investor community has always reposed faith in the Adani Group on the basis of detailed analysis and reports prepared by financial experts and leading national and international credit rating agencies.”
The market capitalisation of the Adani Group fell Rs 80,078 crore to Rs 18,37,978 crore in just a day. Adani Transmission plummeted 8.06 per cent, ACC 7.11 per cent, Ambuja Cements 6.83 per cent, Adani Port 6.03 per cent, Adani Power and Adani Wilmar 5 per cent, Adani Total Gas 3.61 per cent, Adani Green 2.12 per cent, and the flagship Adani Enterprises 1.18 per cent.
