India’s Adani Group has rebutted allegations of wrongdoing by short seller Hindenburg Research that
wiped more than $50bn from its value last week in a bid to calm investors in the middle of a $2.4bn share sale.
Yesterday Adani published a document of 54 pages, plus some 350 more of appendices in which it argued that Hindenburg’s report had «caused serious and unprecedented adverse impact on our investors».
Adani Enterprises, one of the group’s companies, said over the weekend that its follow-on public offering of shares would proceed as planned, despite concerns that it would struggle to attract investors. The offering was intended to widen the shareholder register of the sprawling industrial group, much of which is currently owned by related entities and Mauritius-based funds. The offering was launched on Friday, and books are set to close tomorrow. The short seller’s challenge has caused a frisson across India’s business community: the company has wide-ranging interests, including oil and gas, ports, airports and mining. It is one of India’s largest private infrastructure groups, and, before the sell-off, Gautam Adani was the world’s third-richest person.
Adani said that «not one» of 88 questions posed by Hindenburg «is based on independent or journalistic fact finding» and called them «selective regurgitations of public disclosures or rhetorical innuendos colouring rumours as fact».
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