Hindenburg Report on Adani: India’s Future Being Held Back by Adani Group

Hindenburg Report on Adani is currently creating waves across the world. The report, which was made public just before the Adani Group’s 20,000 crore follow-on public offer (FPO), had made serious allegations on Gautam Adani. The report alleges that Adani Group had engaged in billions of US dollars in suspicious dealings with its chairman’s brother, Vinod Adani, and his labyrinth of offshore shell entities. These entities included 38 entities in Mauritius, along with others in the UAE, Cyprus, Singapore, and various Caribbean islands.

The report also questions Adani a web of opaque offshore entities, often with connections to Vinod Adani, that seemed to hold nothing but billions of US dollars worth of stock in Adani listed companies. In addition to that, the report further highlighted stock parking entities engaged in wildly irregular trading, accounting for up to 30%-47% of delivery volume, essentially cornering the market in Adani shares. Similarly, 88 such questions were put across to Gautam Adani. Once the Hindenburg Report on Adani was made public, Adani Group’s share prices crashed.

Official Response to Hindenburg Report on Adani

The Adani Group responded to the report calling the Hindenburg report “maliciously mischievous” and “unresearched”. Terming the Hindenburg reachers as “Madoffs of Manhattan”, the Adani Group issued a statement saying: “This is not merely an unwarranted attack on any specific company but a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India.”

Adani Group also termed this as an attempt at short-selling. “The document is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and concealed facts relating to baseless and discredited allegations to drive an ulterior motive. This is rife with conflict of interest and intended only to create a false market in securities to enable Hindenburg, an admitted short seller, to book massive financial gain through wrongful means at the cost of countless investors.” The 413 page response also went on to provide answers to the 88 questions asked in the Hindenburg Report on Adani. According to the Adani Group, the three key themes from the Hindenburg Report are as follows:

• Selective and manipulative presentation of matters already in the public domain to create a false narrative.
• Complete ignorance or deliberate disregard of the applicable legal and accounting standards as well as industry practice.
• Contempt for the Indian institutions including the regulators and the judiciary.

How the Hindenburg Research Team Has Responded to This

The Hindenburg Research team responded to this report saying it was an attempt to lead the focus away from substantive issues and instead stoked a nationalist narrative, claiming that the report amounted to a calculated attack on India. “The Adani Group has attempted to conflate its meteoric rise and the wealth of its Chairman, Gautam Adani, with the success of India itself. We disagree. To be clear, we believe India is a vibrant democracy and an emerging superpower with an exciting future. We also believe India’s future is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation,” they say.