But on the eve of Republic Day, a 106-page report by US short-selling investment research firm Hindenburg Research Authority threw water on all the smooth plans. Adani Group has raised the valuation of shares of all companies by crunching numbers and doing various tricks to the point without going into complex business terms. They came to this conclusion after two years of talking to numerous people, including several former Adani Group executives, and examining documents.
As a net result, Adani lost Rs 2.36 lakh crore in just two days and was ousted from the elite panel of billionaires with assets of $100 billion or more. It came down to number 7 in the list. Shares of his companies fell 10% the previous day and fell around 5-25% on Friday. And if this is the situation of Adani himself, then the situation of the rest can be easily imagined. The Mumbai stock market fell over 1100 points at one point on Friday but ended the day at a 3-month low of 59,331 points. Which is 874 points down from the previous day. The Nifty fell by a whopping 288 points to 17604 points. Investors opened properties worth 12 lakh crore rupees in two days.
Also keep in mind, BSE website data says that only 1% of buyers got a follow-on public offer (FPO) on the first day. FPO’s floor price dropped by 10%.
But experts claim that it would be wrong to think that only the report against Adani is responsible for the market slump. Given the Indian market, Adani’s scope is certainly huge. If the claim that the share price of his company has been fraudulently increased, if it is proved true, the market will definitely get a big shock. Because Adani has big investments in several government sectors of India, such as ports-roads-rails-airports-power. His loss will affect the country’s industrial-infrastructure policy and banking sector. But that effect will be understood on a long-term basis. This is not overnight.
In fact, the central committee of the Fed is meeting in the US on the day of the presentation of the central budget next week. Where there are already indications, the Fed may be on the path to another big interest rate hike, unable to rein in inflation. The market is witnessing this volatility due to budget and Fed-pairing uncertainty.
The Adani group has also threatened to take legal action against the Hindenburg Research Authority as usual calling it ‘slander’. However, the Hindenburg Research Authority’s statement has proved that it did not have a special taste. They claimed, “Even after almost two days of publication of our report, not a single strong evidence has been presented by the Adani group, which proves that our claim is wrong. Rather, it is said that the report of 106 pages of 32 thousand words prepared over 2 years, where There are atleast 720 citations, made in haste without investigation. If Adani is really interested in disproving our report and has the necessary documents, he can come to the US and file a case. We have plenty of documents to prove our report. .”
There is one more thing going against the Adani group initially against this claim. Reuters claims that regulator Sebi has decided to increase monitoring of the Adani Group’s transactions in 202222. Besides, they will also examine the report of the Hindenburg Research Authority on the Adani group.