'Hindenburg copy-pasted our disclosures, did no research,' says Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh

The Adani Group has accused Hindenburg Research of not doing proper research, and “copy-pasting” from the company disclosures. It also said that they either did not do proper research or did proper research but misled the public. Adani Group Chief Financial Officer Jugeshinder Singh, in an interview with Managing Editor, Business Today Television, Siddharth Zarabi said that Hindenburg needs to be questioned why they misrepresented in the questions they asked Adani Group in their report. 

In the interview following the 413-page report released to investors on Saturday, Adani Group answered all the 88 questions put forth by Hindenburg Research, said Singh in the interview. “All 88 questions have been answered. Even if we did not answer all the 88 questions – they used our disclosures and they did not do any research. Sixty-eight of these questions are bogus and misrepresenting. They did not do any research – they cut, copy, pasted and the report was a hit-job on the FPO. It could be worse too – they did the research and deliberately misled the public. You should ask them. Ask them why they misrepresented the 68 questions,” said Singh.

Also read: Adani Group engaged in stock manipulation, accounting fraud over decades: Hindenburg report

When asked about the remaining 20 questions, Singh said that they were questions like why the Adani Group does not accept criticism. “We do, but we don’t accept lies. Then there are questions on someone’s personal family office, which we cannot answer. We provided all the answers we could,” said Singh. 

The CFO said that even Hindenburg’s “bogus report based on lies and misrepresentation” could not find anything to misrepresent in the Adani Group’s businesses. “Even that report does not find anything on our fundamental businesses,” he said.

Singh also defended Shah Dhandharia, the audit firm that has been questioned for its small size and calibre to audit a conglomerate as big as the Adani Group. The Hindenburg report had questioned the capability of the firm that has four partners and 11 employees and did not “appear to be capable of undertaking such a gargantuan task". 

When asked why they had not enlisted one of the big accounting firms such as Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young, PwC, Singh said, “Do you think as a large Indian company like us has no responsibility to develop Indian vendors? If we are helping a small Indian firm, is this a bad thing? We have 21,000 small vendors.”

Also read: Adani Group hits back at Hindenburg, says its conduct a 'calculated securities fraud'

Also read: Adani Group says it is ‘shocked’ at Hindenburg report; says it’s an attempt to damage upcoming FPO