Indian billionaire Gautam Adani invoked nationalist sentiment once again Tuesday, as he touted the Adani Group’s resilience against what he claimed was a “malicious” attack by New York-based activist investor Hindenburg Group, which accused the conglomerate of engaging in widespread fraud earlier this year.
FILE PHOTO: Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group during a press conference at a press ... [+]
Addressing his flagship firm Adani Enterprises’ annual shareholders meeting, the billionaire called the Hindenburg report a “combination of targeted misinformation and discredited allegations” and a “malicious attempt aimed at damaging our reputation.”
Adani pointed to initial findings outlined by an Indian Supreme Court-appointed committee on the matter, saying it “did not find any regulatory failure,” on his company’s part.
The Adani Group chairman said the company remains confident of its “governance and disclosure standards” as it awaits a report from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Hindenburg’s allegations.
Adani, whose company has attempted to characterize Hindenburg’s allegations as an attack on India—once again leaned into nationalist fervor, comparing his company’s “resilience” with “the resilience that drives our belief in… our motherland.”
The speech made repeated mentions of India’s economic growth and ended with the salutation “Jai Hind” (Salute to India).
37%. That’s how much the value of Adani Enterprises' stock has dropped since the start of the year. Since the Hindenburg report became public on January 24, the company’s stock has fallen more than 28%.
According to our estimates, Gautam Adani’s current net worth stands at $51.8 billion—which makes him the 24th richest person in the world. Adani’s fortune has shrunk by nearly $75 billion since Hindenburg’s allegations became public.
In January, Hindenburg Research disclosed a short position against the Adani Group’s listed firms and published a report accusing the conglomerate of engaging in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.” The company strongly refuted the allegations and labeled it as a “calculated attack on India.” The company’s CFO, Jugeshinder Singh, even controversially compared the markets’ selloff of Adani’s stocks with the infamous Jallianwala Bagh Massacre—a colonial-era mass killing of protestors ordered by a British officer in the north Indian city of Amritsar in 1919—saying Indians were gunning down fellow Indians the orders of a “white person.” The allegations also became a major political issue in India owing to Adani’s decades-long close ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Adani Taps Indian Nationalist Fervor To Salvage His Empire—As He Slides Down Billionaire Ranks (Forbes)
On Hindenburg, Adani evokes 'matrubhumi', flaunts spunk and success (Economic Times)