Asia’s richest man, who is widely perceived as being close to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also sought to portray Hindenburg’s charges against his conglomerate as an attack against his home country, in a bid to garner support from nationalists. The tycoon has often aligned his businesses with Modi’s development goals, building capital-intensive infrastructure such as ports and airports.
Gautam Adani published a 413-page rebuttal to a short seller’s allegations of widespread corporate malfeasance, seeking to calm investors in the midst of a US$2.5 billion ($3.28 billion) share sale and stem a rout that wiped out more than US$50 billion of his group’s market value.
In a Sunday statement, the Adani Group said some 65 of the 88 questions raised by Hindenburg Research have already been addressed in public disclosures and called the US firm’s conduct “nothing short of a calculated securities fraud under applicable law.” It also repeated a threat of legal action.
