MUMBAI: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it has completed the investigation into 22 matters out of the total 24, in the Adani - Hindenburg case.
In a status report submitted to the Supreme Court, the capital market regulator said that the remaining two investigations are at an interim stage.
Without divulging the outcome of its investigations, SEBI gave a detailed breakdown of the steps taken by it during its probe, including related party transactions. “SEBI shall take appropriate action based on the outcome of the investigations in accordance with law,” the regulator said in the filing.
The probe reports finalized include allegations of manipulation of stock prices, alleged failure to disclose transactions with related parties, and possible violation of insider trading in some of the group stocks.
However, on the allegation of non-compliance with the minimum public sharing requirement by investing in its own companies through overseas proxies, SEBI said its investigation covered 13 overseas entities (12 foreign portfolio investors and one foreign entity).
These 13 were classified as public shareholders of the Adani group companies but allegations including the US short-seller Hindenburg Research termed some of them as close associates or run by Vinod Adani, the elder brother of group chairman Gautam Adani.
“As many of the entities linked to these foreign investors are located in tax haven jurisdictions, establishing the economic interest shareholders of the 12 FPIs remains a challenge,” SEBI said adding efforts are still being made to gather details from five foreign jurisdictions pertaining to the actual owners of these investors. Pending this, the probe report is interim, it said.
According to Sebi, listed companies have to maintain a minimum public shareholding of at least 25%. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Adani- Hindenburg case on August 29. SEBI also said an interim report has been approved by the competent authority with respect to trading in Adani group stocks in pre and post-release of the Hindenburg report. “Information from external agencies/entities actively pursued and awaited,” it said adding this interim report was approved by the competent authority on August 24.