None Adani Faces One of Worst Billionaire Wipeouts With Empire Under Siege
Adani Group will publish a detailed response to allegations made by US short seller Hindenburg Research only after the end of a new share sale that is set to conclude on January 31, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bondholders who participated in a conference call with Adani executives said that the conglomerate, owned by Asia's richest person, Gautam Adani, would give a detailed rebuttal on Friday. While it had answered some questions, the longer reply did not materialize as expected.
One person said that the group has prepared a response of more than 100 pages and is asking for legal advice on when to release it, and asked not to be identified because the information is private. While it won't be before January 31, the people did not say when the reply would come.
A representative for the conglomerate didn't want to say anything.
Who is Gautam Adani and what is Hindenburg Research? Hindenburg released its report just days before the billionaire s flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd. launched India's biggest ever public offering that aims to raise 200 billion rupees $2.5 billion. It was meant to fund capital expenditures and pay down debt of its various units.
Hindenburg said that it found the Adani GroupAdani Group engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades and called out the conglomerate's substantial debt. The firm said it was shorting Adani Group through US bonds and non-Indian derivatives, and that its report only relates to the valuation of securities traded outside India. The group lost more than $50 billion in market value in two sessions, costing Adani more than $20 billion, or about one-fifth of his total fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Adani Group said Thursday that it was looking into legal action against the research firm, calling Hindenburg's report maliciously mischievous, bogus and unresearched. Billions are not needed by OpenAI to keep ChatGPT running.