'Largest con in corporate history' | Billionaire chasing 'world's cheapest green hydrogen' hit by $70bn stock rout
Tycoon Gautam Adani sees shares plunge after US research company makes claims of 'brazen fraud' — but hits back with claims of 'attack on India'
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Adani Group companies have, over the last few days, lost more than $70bn between them, according to financial wire reports, putting a massive dent in the wealth of Adani himself, who was last year valued at more than $100bn and labelled “Asia's richest man”.
Adani Green Energy suffered a 20% fall on the Mumbai stock market on Monday, the most permitted under the exchanges rules, continuing a rout that began on Friday and swept across the listed companies of the Adani Group.
The fall was sparked by a report from a US forensic financial research company called Hindenburg Research, which conducted a two-year investigation into the conglomerate, claiming that it has engaged in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”.
The Adani Group hit back aggressively on Sunday, issuing a rebuttal claiming that the Hindenburg report is designed to create a “false market” to enable profits by short-selling and branding it “a calculated attack on India”.
Hindenburg responded to the accusations by stating that “fraud cannot be obfuscated by nationalism”, that it believes India’s “exciting future... is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation”.
Adani Green has huge ambitions in the solar sector in particular, and in December claimed to have become the world’s largest PV-wind hybrid developer after commissioning a total of 1.4GW.