'Efforts of Hindenburg, Soros are failing,' say netizens as Adani Enterprises stock surges 19% on SC panel report

Adani shareholders on Monday rejoiced at the conglomerate's listed stocks surging after a Supreme Court-appointed panel nearly gave a "clean chit" amid scathing allegations in Hindenburg report.

All the Adani Group stocks surged between 5% and 20% on Monday after the SC panel report said Sebi drew a blank in investigations into suspected violations in overseas investments in the Adani Group.

Scrip of Adani Enterprises Ltd, the flagship arm of Adani Group, ended Monday trading session 19% higher at Rs 2,325, its highest level in nearly four months.

Investors also cheered that six entities, including four foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), are under lens for suspicious trading in Adani Group shares prior to the release of the damning Hindenburg report, the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee said.

There was a build-up of short positions in the Adani scrips prior to the January 24 release of the Hindenburg report, and substantial profits were booked thereafter as stocks crashed, the 178-page report said.

Twitter users on Monday said US short seller Hindenburg Research and billionaire investor George Soros tried their best to derail Adani Group's expansion efforts but the SC panel report will put a spanner in their works.

Hindenburg's report claimed that the Adani empire was the ''biggest con in corporate history'' engaged in a ''brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme''.

The turmoil engulfing Gautam Adani’s business empire that’s sparked a punishing stock market selloff and shaken faith in India as an investment opportunity may open the door to a democratic revival in the country, Soros said in February.

On Monday, Adani Group's market capitalisation rose 50% from Hindenburg lows and went above the Rs 10 lakh crore-mark.

"People will forget about that what had happened in Adani Stocks due to Hindenburg Report; and all Adani Stocks will be trading at life time high again in few years," said finfluencer Vivek Singhal on Monday.

The expert committee headed by former SC judge AM Sapre found no regulatory failure during the sharp rise in prices of Adani group companies between March 2000 and December 2022 and their dramatic meltdown after January 24.

The report said an analysis in trading of apples-to-port group's flagship firm, Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) shares in four patches between March 1, 2020 and December 31,2022, a month before publication of the Hindenburg report and meltdown of Adani shares, showed the state-owned LIC was the biggest loser as it sold offs 50 lakh shares of the company when prices hovered around Rs 300 and bought 4.8 crore shares when the prices ranged between Rs 1,031 and Rs 3,859.

After a detailed scrutiny of the movement of prices of Adani shares and their sale and purchase by different entities, the committee found no evidence of price manipulation of stocks by firms linked to the Adani group.

Trading in AEL shares was analysed in four periods - March 1, 2020 to August 31, 2020 (Patch-1), September 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020 (Patch-2), October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 (Patch-3) and April 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022 (Patch-4).

Stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) informed the committee that ''while the price of AEL shares rose significantly, there was no evident pattern of manipulative contribution of price rise which could be attributed to any single entity or group of concentrated entities.''

Also read: Adani stocks: Adani Enterprises zooms 19% today; group's six other shares settle at upper price bands