A recent investigation claims that India’s Adani Group utilized “opaque” finances to circumvent rules that ban share price manipulation. As a result, the company is currently embroiled in a fresh issue.
According to the study, the organization is accused of investing millions of dollars through offshore entities in publicly traded equities of its own companies.
It identifies two individual investors as having allegedly been responsible for purchasing and selling the stocks on behalf of the group.
The Adani Group dismissed the allegations, describing them as “without merit.”
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is a global network of investigative journalists, released the study on Thursday. Additionally, The Guardian and Financial Times published articles based on the papers that were provided by them.
In India and other countries, the Adani Group is involved in a diverse array of business activities, including as the trading of commodities, the operation of airports and utilities, the management of ports, and the provision of renewable energy. It is headed by billionaire Gautam Adani, who is presently ranked No. 24 on the most up-to-date version of Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people.
Mr. Adani is said to have a close relationship with the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. For a long time, he has been accused by politicians on the opposing side of benefiting from his political contacts; however, he has always denied these charges.
At the beginning of this year, the businessman was engulfed in a big scandal after Hindenburg Research, a short seller located in the United States, accused his organization of “brazen” stock manipulation and accounting fraud. Hindenburg Research was based in the United States. Hindenburg has also asserted that the organization was driving up share prices by employing overseas businesses and shell corporations to invest money in its own equities, which drove up the price of the shares.
The organization refuted the allegations and referred to them as “malicious,” but the market value of its shares dropped by billions, and it was forced to cancel a planned share sale. The claims are currently being looked into by India’s market regulator, which is being supervised by a panel that was established by India’s Supreme Court to look into the allegations.
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According to the findings of the OCCRP inquiry, two individuals “spent years trading hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Adani Group stock.” According to the report, the two men have “close ties to the Adani family” and have served as directors and shareholders in businesses that are affiliated with the Adani group.
The BBC has not conducted its own investigation into the allegations.
According to OCCRP, there is no evidence to suggest that the monies that they used for their investments came from the Adani family.
However, it went on to say that the material and papers that their writers had looked through proved that there “is evidence” that their trading in Adani stock “was coordinated with the family.”
According to the OCCRP, “the question of whether this arrangement is in violation of the law rests on whether Ahli and Chang should be considered to be acting on behalf of Adani ‘promoters,'” which is a term used in India to refer to the individuals who own the majority of a company.
Mr. Ahli and Mr. Chang did not immediately issue a public response; nevertheless, the Adani Group questioned the timing of the news report, labeling it “suspicious, mischievous, and malicious.”
The statement said, “We have complete faith in the due process of law and remain confident of the quality of our disclosures and corporate governance standards,”
On the benchmark BSE index, the price of shares of Adani Enterprises, which is the group’s flagship company, was trading down by 2.82%.
