A day after OCCRP claimed Adani Group using "opaque" Mauritius funds to pump in substantial investments into the publicly traded stocks, another report said that the offshore shell companies, mentioned by the Financial Times, are indeed linked to the Indian conglomerate.
Indian Express reported that offshore corporate service provider Trident Trust, which is part of the Pandora Papers investigation, has suggested two offshore shell companies registered in British Virgin Islands (BVI), named by Financial Times, are linked to the Adani Group.
According to Financial Times, the two individuals behind these firms were associates of Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod Adani. These are United Arab Emirates national Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli and Taiwan national Chang Chung-Ling.
While Ahli used Gulf Asia Trade and Investment Limited, Chang used Lingo Investment Limited. The two began to pump in money in Adani stocks in 2013. Since then they earned huge profit by trading Adani stocks.
FT reported to pick up and trade in Adani stocks, funds from unknown sources were funneled by these BVI shell companies through the Emerging India Focus Funds (Mauritius) and the EM Resurgent Fund (Mauritius) under the Global Opportunities Fund (Bermuda).
Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli from UAE and Chang Chung-Ling from Taiwan, the FT report said, used a series of bespoke investment structures within the Global Opportunities Fund in Bermuda to exclusively trade in Adani stocks.
It is to be noted that any promoter link to these offshore companies would mean that Adani companies breached the 75 per cent ceiling set by capital market regulator Sebi for promoter shareholding.
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Sebi requires that the shareholding of the ‘promoter group’ in listed companies should not exceed 75 per cent. That means at least 25 per cent of the equity of a company should be held by the public.
Under rules of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Sebi records show the Emerging India Focus Funds and the EM Resurgent Fund declared Trident Trust Company Ltd as the beneficial owner, the report said.
On Thursday, OCCRP claimed that millions were invested in some publicly traded stocks of Adani Group via "opaque" Mauritius funds that "obscured" involvement of alleged business partners of the Adani family.
It further said that during its probe it found at least two cases where the investors bought and sold Adani stock through such offshore structures.
The report comes at least eight months after US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the ports-to-energy conglomerate of improper business dealings, including the use of offshore entities in tax havens.
The Adani Group on Thursday denied the report published by the OCCRP. “We categorically reject these recycled allegations. These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report,” the Adani Group said in a statement.
The OCCRP is a global network of investigative journalists focused on exposing corruption. It is funded by organizations including George Soros' Open Society Foundation (OSF) and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
On Thursday, Adani Group shares suffered significant losses after the OCCRP report was out. The overall market capitalisation (mcap) of the group's all 10 stocks dropped by over Rs 35,000 crore in just one day.
Except ACC stock, which was up by 0.47 per cent, all the stocks of the group ended in the red, fell up to 4 per cent.
Shares of Adani Green fell 4.39 per cent, followed by those of the flagship firm Adani Enterprises (down 3.77 per cent). Shares of Ambuja Cements (down 3.53 per cent), Adani Energy Solutions (down 3.52 per cent) and Adani Ports (down 3.37) ended over 3 per cent lower each.
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