Gautam Adani.
Credit: PTI Photo
Shares of Adani group companies fell on Thursday morning trading, even the company refuted charges in a report which stated that hundreds of millions of dollars were routed through shell companies to prop up stocks of various group companies – essentially market manipulation – between 2013 and 2018.
“We categorically reject these recycled allegations. These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report,” the ports-to-power conglomerate said in an official statement on Thursday morning.
According to documents uncovered by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and reported by The Guardian and The Financial Times, Adani associates were controlling a complex offshore operation in Mauritius that was pumping money into the stock market and buying Adani stocks to prop up their value during their meteoric rise from 2013 to 2018.
“In at least two cases — representing Adani stock holdings that at one point reached $430 million — the mysterious investors turn out to have widely reported ties to the group’s majority shareholders, the Adani family,” the OCCRP report said.
“The two men, Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli and Chang Chung-Ling, have longtime business ties to the family and have also served as directors and shareholders in Adani Group companies and companies associated with one of the family’s senior members, Vinod Adani,” it further added.
The men allegedly bought and sold Adani stock through offshore structures that hid their involvement in the operations. The documents also claim that the family had knowledge of these investments and the management company in charge of their investments paid a Vinod Adani company to advise them.
The fresh allegations follow similar claims made by US short seller Hindenburg Research in January that said Adani group had spent decades engaged in “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” It was one of the largest setbacks the conglomerate has faced yet, as group stocks plummeted post the report’s publication, wiping off $150 billion from its listed stocks and $60 billion off Adani’s own net worth at one point.
On Thursday morning, shares of group companies, including Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adani Total, Adani Green Energy, Adani Wilmar and others were down between 1.8 to 3 per cent.
In its statement, Adani said that the allegations are based on closed cases from a decade ago when the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) probed allegations of over invoicing, transfer of funds abroad, related party transactions and investments through FPIs, it added.
After investigation by an independent adjudicating authority and an appellate tribunal, it was found that there was no over valuation and the transactions were deemed lawful, Adani Group said, adding that the same was ruled by the Supreme Court in March 2023.
“Notably, these FPIs are already part of the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As per the Expert Committee appointed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, there is no evidence of any breach of the Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) requirements or manipulation of stock prices,” the statement said.
“We have complete faith in the due process of law and remain confident of the quality of our disclosures and corporate governance standards,” it added.