NEW DELHI: US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research’s scathing report on the Adani Group in January was “targeted misinformation” aimed to damage its reputation and misused by “vested interests”, promoter Gautam Adani has said now.
“On the eve of our Republic Day, a US-based short seller published a report just as we were planning to launch the largest follow-on public offering (FPO) in India’s history. The report was a combination of targeted misinformation and outdated, discredited allegations aimed at damaging our reputation and generating profits through a deliberate drive-down of our stock prices,” Adani said in the company’s annual report.
Adani’s strong rebuttal comes as the Group’s market capitalization has taken a hit of about Rs 9 lakh crore since January 24 and most stocks, even after five months since the report was published, are nowhere near their previous highs.
“The short-selling incident resulted in several adverse consequences that we had to confront. Even though we promptly issued a comprehensive rebuttal, various vested interests tried to opportunistically exploit the claims made by the short seller. These entities engaged and encouraged false narratives across various news and social media platforms,” said Adani.
The billionaire remains confident of governance and disclosure standards at Group firms even as market regulator Sebi is yet to submit its final report on the allegations raised by Hindenburg. Adani Group, led by India’s second richest person Gautam Adani, is facing one of its biggest challenges to come clean after Hindenburg accused it of stock price manipulation via improper use of tax havens.
On May 19, a six-member expert committee set up by the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the Adani group on charges of stock price manipulation based on the information provided by the market regulator Sebi. Since then, only a few group companies' stocks have seen a marginal recovery while others continue to bleed.