According to reports, India's market regulator is still looking into some of the allegations leveled against the Adani Group by US short seller Hindenburg Research, indicating that the conglomerate received only a partial reprieve with Thursday's orders.
Some investigation strands, such as whether the Gautam Adani-led group followed minimum public shareholding guidelines, are still pending with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, or Sebi.
Key Highlights
- SEBI dismissed stock manipulation and related-party transaction allegations by Hindenburg, granting Adani Group a clean chit.
- Multiple other probes against Adani firms remain unresolved, including public shareholding norms and foreign investor disclosure cases.
The regulator has yet to receive responses from certain stakeholders regarding these cases. While there is no indication that the ports-to-power conglomerate will face any fines or regulatory censure for the matters before Sebi, it is likely that more Sebi orders will be issued against the Adani Group.
The billionaire-founder was also indicted by the US Department of Justice last year for an alleged $250 million bribery scheme. Adani's efforts to resolve the charges have stalled in recent months as Washington and New Delhi have clashed over trade, Russian oil, and India's conflict with Pakistan, reported this month.
Billionaire Adani and investors welcomed Sebi's most recent orders, which cleared the group of Hindenburg's allegations in early 2023 that it used so-called related party transactions to route funds into its listed companies in two cases. The combined market value of Adani Group companies increased by more than $6 billion to $156 billion on Friday, as all of the conglomerate's listed companies rallied.
Sebi "has reaffirmed what we have always maintained, that the Hindenburg claims were baseless," Asia's second-richest person wrote on X. On Friday, the shares of Adani companies rose sharply.
The scathing January 2023 report by the now-defunct short-seller alleged large-scale corporate fraud, sparking a stock rout that eroded over $150 billion in market value for the listed Adani entities and put an end to Adani's debt-fueled expansion.
Court-Mandated Investigation
It also prompted India's Supreme Court to request that Sebi investigate Hindenburg's allegations against the conglomerate.
The investigation looked into potential violations of minimum public shareholding rules in Adani Group firms, stock price manipulation through foreign portfolio investment, and allegations of insider trading.
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In its status report to the court in August 2023, Sebi also included 13 matters involving related party transactions. The Sebi's Thursday order cleared Adani of two related-party transaction investigations.
In recent months, Adani Group has begun to regain some of the ground it lost following the Hindenburg report and the DOJ indictment. Despite regulatory concerns at home and abroad, it has secured funding from marquee investors and is once again planning multibillion-dollar expansion plans.
