Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adani Green shares in news on report Pandora probe links Adani to shell firms

Shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd, Adani Power Ltd, Adani Green Energy Ltd, Adani Wilmar Ltd, Adani Total Gas Ltd, Adani Ports & SEZ and Adani Energy Solutions Ltd, among others, will be in news on Friday morning after The Indian Express, which accessed records of offshore corporate service provider Trident Trust as part of the Pandora Papers investigation, suggested two offshore shell companies registered in British Virgin Islands (BVI), named by Financial Times, are linked to the Adani Group.

On Thursday, OCCRP, an investigative reporting platform, backed by George Soros, said millions of dollars were invested in some publicly traded stocks of the group via opaque Mauritius funds that obscured involvement of alleged business partners of the Adani family. According a report by Financial Times, based on documents accessed by OCCRP, the two individuals behind these firms were associates of Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod Adani: 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 report suggested.

Financial Times had on Thursday suggested that two individuals used a Bermuda fund to amass and trade large positions in shares of the Adani Group companies. The Adani group categorically rejected the "recycled allegations" and said the 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.

"In fact, this was anticipated, as was reported by the media last week. These claims are based on closed cases from a decade ago when the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) probed allegations of over invoicing, transfer of funds abroad, related party transactions and investments through FPIs. An independent adjudicating authority and an appellate tribunal had both confirmed that there was no over-valuation and that the transactions were in accordance with applicable law," Adani group said on Thursday.