Hindenburg 2.0? Adani Enterprises, Adani Green, Adani Total Gas, other group shares fall after OCCRP report alleges family-controlled entities bought own shares; check details
Produced by: Harshita
Designed by: Manoj Kumar
Shares of listed Adani group companies including Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy, Adani Total Gas, and Adani Energy Solutions fell up to 4% on Thursday (August 31), after OCCRP, an investigative reporting platform, backed by George Soros, released new details on allegations that the Adani Family partners had invested millions to buy own group shares through opaque investment funds based in the island nation of Mauritius.
Why are Adani
shares falling?
Shares of flagship Adani Enterprises fell more than 4.4% to Rs 2,402 on NSE. 2.02. Adani Ports was down 3% at Rs 793. Adani Power slipped over 4.5% to Rs 313 on NSE. Adani Energy Solutions (formerly Adani Transmission) declined 3.5% to Rs 812 on NSE today.
Adani Enterprises share
price today
Adani Green Energy shares fell around 4% to Rs 931 on NSE. Adani Total Gas was down 2.75% at Rs 634. Shares of Adani Wilmar also fell up to 2% to around Rs 360. Cement makers ACC and Ambuja Cements fell around 3% each. NDTV stock fell 2% to Rs 214.20 on NSE intraday.
Adani Green Energy, Adani Wilmar share price
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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) alleged that millions of dollars were invested in some publicly traded stocks of the Adani Group via opaque Mauritius funds that obscured involvement of alleged business partners of the Adani family. According to the report, Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli and Chang Chung-Ling, are "longtime business ties to the family and have also served as directors and shareholders in Adani Group companies and companies" associated with Vinod Adani, Gautam Adani's older brother.
Hindenburg 2.0: OCCRP report on Adani Group
The OCCRP report alleges that documents reveal that "considerable profits were made" by buying and selling Adani stock through this offshore agreement that obscured their involvement. The management company in charge of the "partners" investments also paid a Vinod Adani company to advise them in their investments, the report alleged.
OCCRP's allegations
against Adani Group
Gautam Adani-led 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," it said.
Adani Group refutes
OCCRP's allegations
Citing review of files from multiple tax havens and internal Adani Group emails, OCCRP said its investigation found at least two cases where the investors bought and sold Adani stock through such offshore structures. Note that in January 2023, a report by US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged that the Adani Group had "engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades".
Hindenburg report on
Adani Group
"The matter attained finality in March 2023 when the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India ruled in our favour. Clearly, since there was no over-valuation, there is no relevance or foundation for these allegations on transfer of funds. Notably, these FPIs are already part of the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As per the Expert Committee appointed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, there is no evidence of any breach of the Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) requirements or manipulation of stock prices," Adani group said.
Adani Group's statement
on OCCRP report
Adani Group in its statement said, "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."
"Claims are based on
closed cases"
The group added that "it is unfortunate that these publications, which sent us queries, chose not to carry our response in full." These attempts, the Adani group said, are aimed at, inter alia, generating profits by driving down our stock prices and these short sellers are under investigation by various authorities.