Following last week’s allegations of accounting fraud and brazen stock manipulation, Adani Group’s CFO, Jugeshinder Singh, has responded by stating that the organisation was not involved in any speculative activity as reported by ET. The recent development comes at a time when the Indian conglomerate’s 4.2 lakh crore rupees have been reportedly wiped out due to short selling following the allegations.
The CFO questioned the timing of the report and said that Hindenburg seeks to sabotage Adani’s 20,000 crore FPO that concludes on 31 January. “This is not ignorance or a mistake, but a deliberate attempt to mislead,” Singh said, in an interview with ET. Hindenburg had reportedly raised 88 questions in its report to which Adani Group responded by saying that 65 answers to those questions are contained in the annual reports published on their websites by Adani Portfolio. It contains financial statements, offer memorandums, and timely stock exchange disclosures.
The power-to-ports conglomerate maintains that the accusations made in the report appears to be “selective and manipulative presentation of matters already in the public domain to create a false narrative.” The group further stated that out of the remaining 23 questions, 18 were pertaining to third parties (not Adani Group companies) and public shareholders, while 5 were baseless accusations predicated on “imaginary fact patterns.”
Reportedly, Hindenburg Research has refuted Adani’s 413-page-long response by stating that “fraud cannot be obfuscated by nationalism.” The investigative research group praised India by hailing its democratic structure and added that the nation’s future is “held back by Adani Group.” “Our report asked 88 specific questions of the Adani Group. In its response, Adani failed to specifically answer 62 of them. Instead, it mainly grouped questions together in categories and provided generalized deflections,” the American short seller further said.