On Thursday, Indian Adani Group hit back at a new report probing alleged manipulation of the coalition’s share prices, indicting its authors of conspiring to force down its stocks for profit.
The globe-spreading ports-to-power coalition noticed almost $120 billion wiped from its market value after US short-seller investment company Hindenburg Research indicted it of “brazen” corporate fraud.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) said on Wednesday that it had found financial documents supporting Hindenburg’s assertions that Adani had abused offshore tax havens and affiliated party transactions to move up its share price.
Two men who had acted as directors in Adani Group firms had spent years trading stock in the coalition through offshore structures that hid their involvement, the report said.
In a Thursday statement, Adani said that it “categorically” denied the OCCRP’s conclusions and indicted the investigative journalism network of aiming to profit by “moving down our stock prices.”
It added that we have full trust in the anticipated procedure of law and stay confident of the quality of our disclosures and corporate governance standards. In light of these points, the timing of these reports is doubtful, misbehaving and malicious, it added.
A meteoric climb in Adani Group’s share costs funded the conglomerate’s breakneck development.
Gautam Adani, the billionaire founder, who was until this year the third-richest man in the World, lost two-thirds of his net worth in the path of the Hindenburg accusations.
He is considered a closest ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a fellow citizen of Gujarat state.
Oppositions and critics say Modi’s connection allowed Adani to unfairly succeed in business and avoid appropriate supervision.
