Mumbai: Exactly a year after US shortseller Hindenburg Research published a damaging report against Adani Group, Chairman Gautam Adani shared how the past 12 months panned out for the multinational conglomerate.
He was having breakfast when Adani came to know of the report put out online by the New York-based shortseller.
“Fatuously self-styled as a ‘research report’, it contained the same dead allegations that my detractors had been trying to resurrect by flogging them through their allies in the media… it was a cunningly crafted set of selective half-truths sourced from disclosed and publicly available information. Lies and baseless allegations against us were nothing new. So, after issuing a comprehensive response, I thought no more about it,” Adani said in a statement on Thursday.
“However, a lie had crossed the world even as truth was lacing up its shoes! For me, having been raised on a staple diet of the power of truth, this attack was a lesson on the power of falsehoods,” Adani observed.
He pointed out that this was a unique two-dimensional attack – “a financial one and also one that played out in the political space, each feeding off the other.”
He claimed that the lies against Adani Group, “aided and abetted by some in the media”, were corrosive enough to “substantially erode the market cap of our portfolio”.
‘Pained’ by the fact that thousands of small investors had lost their savings, Adani said fortunately, thanks to their “solid assets, robustness of our operations and high quality of our disclosures, the more informed financial community, including lenders and rating agencies, refused to be swayed by the swirling lies and stood solidly with us.”
Detailing how the Group navigated the crisis, Adani said their “biggest weapon” was adequate liquidity.
“We focused on transparently outlining the facts and narrating our side of the story to expose motives of those who attacked us. This led to a declining influence of negative campaigns against our Group,” Adani stated, adding that public perception changed as shown by significant growth in shareholder base, a primary target of Follow-on Public Offering.
“Over this challenging year, our shareholder base expanded by 43%, reaching nearly 70 lakh,” Adani informed, adding that the Group remained committed to maintaining its growth momentum.
The billionaire admitted that the crisis “uncovered a fundamental weakness that I had let grow – we had not paid enough attention to our outreach mechanisms.”
He said few outside the infrastructure finance community were aware of the size, scale and quality of what the Adani Group had done or was doing.
“We had all along naively believed that all our non-financial stakeholders too knew us and the truth about us – that our financials were robust, that our governance was impeccable, that our roadmap to growth was measured, and that we play an important role in building India’s critical infrastructure.”
The experience of the past year “underscored the necessity of engaging effectively with our non-financial stakeholders.”
Adani noted that the trials and tribulations of last 12 months taught the Group valuable lessons.
“It has made us stronger and reaffirmed our faith in Indian institutions. While this devious attack on us – and our strong countermeasures – will no doubt become a case study, I felt compelled to share my learnings because, it was us today, it could be someone else tomorrow. I am under no illusions that this is the end of such attacks. I believe we have emerged even stronger from this experience and even more unwavering in our resolve to continue our humble contribution to the India growth story,” Adani concluded.
