Adani Group will issue a detailed response to the allegations made by US short seller Hindenburg Research only after the completion of a fresh share sale that ends on January 31, according to people familiar with the matter.
Group owned by Asia’s richest man Gautam Adani It will give a detailed rebuttal on Friday, according to bondholders who participated in a conference call with Adani executives. While it answered some questions, the long answer did not go as expected.
The group has prepared a response of more than 100 pages and is also seeking legal advice on when to release it, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Although this will not happen before January 31, the people did not say when the answer would come.
A representative for the group declined to comment.
Billionaire’s flagship firm Hindenburg released its report a few days back. Adani Enterprises Ltd launched India’s largest-ever initial follow-on public offering, seeking to raise 200 billion rupees ($2.5 billion). Its purpose was to fund capital expenditure and pay off the debt of its various units.
Hindenburg alleged that its two-year investigation found the Adani group “engaged in an brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades” and pointed to the group’s “substantial debt”. The firm said it is shorting Adani Group through US-traded bonds and non-Indian-traded derivatives, and its reports “relate only to the valuation of securities traded outside India.”
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the group lost more than $50 billion in market value in two sessions, costing Adani himself more than $20 billion, or about a fifth of his total fortune.
The Adani Group on Thursday said it was looking for legal action against the research firm, calling the Hindenburg report “maliciously mischievous,” “bogus” and “unresearched.”
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