US-based investment research firm “Hindenburg Research” on Saturday shared a cryptic post hinting at another major India-focused report. This comes more than a year after the firm released a report alleging “insider trading” and other stock market violations by the Adani Group of companies. The previous accusations of financial misconduct led to a significant drop in Adani’s stock prices.
In an X post on Friday, the firm worte, “Something big soon India.”
In 2023, following the allegations against the Adani Group, shares of various Adani companies plummeted, with reported losses exceeding USD 100 billion. The report accused the group of financial irregularities, though the group has denied these claims.
Previous Hindenburg report on Adani Group
The Hindenburg report accused the conglomerate of stock manipulation and fraud, alleging that Adani had artificially inflated its share prices. These accusations, detailed in the report by the short-seller Hindenburg Research, led to a decline in the stock prices of various Adani Group companies, with losses reportedly exceeding USD 100 billion.
The US-based short seller released its report just two days before Adani Enterprises issued a USD 2.5 billion follow-up public offering.
The Adani Group has denied all the allegations made in the Hindenburg Research report.
In July this year, senior lawyer and BJP leader Mahesh Jethmalani alleged that a US-based businessman with ties to China had commissioned the Hindenburg Research report, which caused a significant drop in Adani Group company shares from January to February 2023.
Jethmalani claimed that Mark Kingdon, the American businessman behind Kingdon Capital Management LLC, was responsible for hiring Hindenburg Research to create a report targeting the Adani Group.
In a social media post on X, Jethmalani alleged that “spy” Anla Cheng and her husband Mark Kingdon had engaged Hindenburg Research to prepare the report on Adani Group companies.
The senior lawyer also asserted that they used Kotak Mahindra Investments Limited (KMIL) to establish a trading account for short-selling Adani shares, profiting millions at the expense of Indian retail investors.
Supreme Court gives clean chit
In January, the Supreme Court of India cleared the Adani Group of the allegations made in the Hindenburg report. The apex court said that it could not intervene in the domain of the regulatory regime and that the Hindenburg report “or anything similar” could not serve as the basis for a separate investigation. The court also instructed the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to proceed with its investigation in accordance with the law.
The court also dismissed a review petition that sought the establishment of a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the Adani-Hindenburg matter.
In March of this year, Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, claimed that the Hindenburg report was a deliberate attempt to destabilise his company and damage the reputation of India’s current government. These remarks came over a year after the US-based firm Hindenburg Research had published its report concerning Adani Group stocks.
In June, during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Adani Enterprises, Group Chairman Gautam Adani said that they had been “confronted with unfounded accusations from a foreign short seller, which cast doubt on our decades of hard work.”
“In the face of an unprecedented attack on our integrity and reputation, we fought back and proved that no challenge could weaken the foundations on which your Group has been established,” he told the gathering.