Following last year’s Adani shock, Hindenburg Research has made reference to a second “big” India revelation. In a message on Saturday, the American short seller stated, “Something big soon India.” X was once Twitter.
Shortly before Adani Enterprises’ scheduled share sale, on January 24, last year, Hindenburg Research released a report that was highly critical of the Adani Group. The report caused a substantial sell-off of Adani Group’s abroad listed bonds and resulted in a $86 billion decrease in the market value of the company’s stocks.
The conglomerate was accused of stock manipulation and fraud in the Hindenburg investigation. The issue concerns claims that Adani had artificially raised the price of its shares, which were contained in a report by short-seller Hindenburg Research. The shares of several Adani Group companies saw a significant decline following the publication of these accusations, apparently amounting to more than USD 100 billion. Two days prior to Adani Enterprises’ USD 2.5 billion follow-up public offering, the US short seller’s report was released.
Every charge made in the Hindenburg Research research has been refuted by the Adani group on several occasions. A prominent lawyer in India and BJP politician Mahesh Jethmalani said in July of this year that a US-based businessman with Chinese connections had ordered the Hindenburg Research research, which caused a sharp decline in the shares of the Adani group companies in January and February of 2023.
According to Jethmalani, Hindenburg Research was contracted by American billionaire Mark Kingdon, who founded Kingdon Capital Management LLC, to write research on the Adani Group. In July of this year, Jethmalani claimed on social media on “X” that “spy” Anla Cheng and her husband Mark Kingdon had hired Hindenburg Research to write a study on the Adani group enterprises. The senior attorney went on to claim that they created a trading account through Kotak Mahindra Investments Limited (KMIL) in order to short sell Adani shares and profit millions of rupees at the expense of ordinary Indian investors. Subsequently, Mahesh Jethmalani urged the government to look into the connections between China and political voices that aimed to discredit the Adani company following the Hindenburg report.
He pointed out that the American short seller Hindenburg’s research, which singled out the Indian company, had a Chinese influence. He went on to say that the Adani Group hit job was a kind of Chinese retaliation for not winning infrastructure projects like the Haifa Port. Following SEBI’s investigation into the allegations, the Supreme Court of India cleared the Adani group on Hindenburg charges. A review petition to establish a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under court supervision to look into the Adani-Hindenburg controversy was recently dismissed by the Supreme Court. In June of this year, Group Chairman Gautam Adani addressed the Adani Enterprises Annual General Meeting (AGM) and stated that the company was “confronted with baseless accusations made by a foreign short seller that questioned our decades of hard work.”
“In the face of an unprecedented attack on our integrity and reputation, we fought back and proved that no challenge could weaken the foundations on which your group has been established,” he addressed the audience.