After Report On Adani, Hindenburg Says ‘Something Big Soon In India’; Who’s Next?

New Delhi: Sharing a cryptic post on X—formerly known as twitter, Hindenburg Research—the short-selling firm— hinted at an imminent release of a major revelation involving an Indian company. “Something big soon India,” it wrote on X on August 10.

This post comes a year after Hindenburg published a report accusing the Adani Group of insider trading and stock market violations. The January 2023 report had caused a significant drop in Adani Group stock prices. According to the reports, losses of over $100 billion were incurred. However, the Adani Group had declined all allegations and dubbed the claims in the report as baseless.

What did the 2003 Hindenburg report state?

The firm had claimed that the Indian conglomerate was operating “the largest con in corporate history”. The original report was of 106-pages, with 32,000 words, and included 720 citations, collectively detailing evidence that Adani “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades,” the firm claimed.

The report allegedly provided evidence of a vast network of offshore shell entities controlled by Gautam Adani’s brother, Vinod Adani, and close associates. “We detailed how billions were surreptitiously moved through these entities, into and out of Adani public and private entities, often without related-party disclosures,” the firm alleged.

The report had also detailed how a network of opaque offshore fund operators ‘surreptitiously helped Adani evade minimum shareholder listing rules, citing numerous public documents and interviews to substantiate the allegations.’

In August 2023, auditor Deloitte had reportedly resigned from its role as statutory auditor for Adani Ports. The research firm claimed that Deloitte had cited ‘undisclosed related-party transactions flagged in our report as the basis for a qualified opinion that accompanied its resignation.’ However, such claims were not verified by Deloitte.

‘American man with Chinese links commissioned the Hindenburg report’

Recently, Mahesh Jethmalani, a senior lawyer and BJP leader, claimed that an American businessman with Chinese connections had commissioned the Hindenburg report on Adani. He had specifically named Mark Kingdon of Kingdon Capital Management LLC as the alleged party behind the report, reported the Mint.

“Spy Anla Cheng and her husband Mark Kingdon hired Hindenburg Research to prepare a report on Adani group companies,” he wrote on X. He further alleged that they used Kotak Mahindra Investments Limited to set up a trading account for short-selling of Adani shares. Thus, he called for probe as he believed that the report might have been Chinese retaliation for losing projects like the Haifa Port.

SC had dismissed plea for probe into the report

The Supreme Court of India had dismissed a plea seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Adani-Hindenburg matter, following a report by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The SEBI had also issued a show cause notice to the research firm, reports claimed.

‘Adani met SEBI Chairperson twice’

The research firm had also claimed that Gautam Adani had met SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Buch twice in 2022— ‘the first high profile businessman’ to do so. One of the meetings was, according to reuters, to discuss Adani’s $10.5 billion acquisition of cement companies ACC and Ambuja. According to the firm, SEBI had specifically been examining the offshore special purpose vehicles used to fund the transaction for the cement company acquisition. It was reportedly be linked to Vinod Adani. The second meeting was reported in October 2022, but no specific agenda was revealed.