Indian billionaire businessman Gautam Adani, the chairman of ports-to-energy conglomerate Adani Enterprises, has slammed a “malicious” news report which claims that the group’s promoters bought their own shares to manipulate stock market prices, apparently in clear violation of Indian law.
The news report has been published by two British media outlets—The Guardian and Financial Times. The news investigation into the matter was carried out by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a global consortium of journalists.
According to the media report, hundreds of millions of dollars were routed by two former directors of Adani-linked companies to a Bermuda-based investment fund, which in turn invested these funds in the Indian stock market between 2013 and 2018.
The former directors have been identified as Chang Chung-Ling and Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli, according to OCCRP.
Further, the journalist consortium has claimed that Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani played a key role in routing money from offshore entitities into the Indian stock market.
In January, New York-based shortseller Hindenburg Research had claimed that Adani had raised debt through manipulating its stock market prices by routing funds into the Indianj stock market through offshore companies linked to company’s promoters.
The charges by Hindenburg led to the biggest stock market crash in Indian corporate history, with over $2 billion worth of Adani-company assets being wiped off from the market.
In a strong rebuttal to the American shortseller report, the Adani Group termed the charges as a “calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions”.
The Indian conglomerate said that the so-called new claims were based on “closed cases” relating to charges of “over invoicing, transfer of funds abroad and investments through foreign portfolio investors (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,” the statement noted.
It underlined that the Supreme Court also ruled in the company’s “favour” in March this year, two months after the Hindenburg report rocked the Indian stock market.
Adani noted that the as far as charges linked to FPIs are concerned, those were already being probed by an expert committee set-up by the Supreme Court.
The Indian conglomerate urged everyone to respect the “ongoing regulatory process” in view of the ongoing probe by the top Indian court and SEBI.
It stressed that the apex court had found “no evidence” of allegations of stock market manipulation.