Were LIC & SBI instructed to invest in Adani FPO, Congress asks

New Delhi: Continuing his tirade of three questions a day to the Prime Minister in his 13th series, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh on Saturday focused on how senior ministers tried to bail out the Adani Enterprises by using public money and by calling in favours.

Questions raised on Adani's FPO being fully sold

He asked, “Is it true that a high-profile Union Minister with longstanding commercial links made personal calls to five-six of the most well-known businesspersons on behalf of Gautam Adani and asked them to invest their personal funds in the FPO to save Gautambhai from embarrassment? Does this not represent a conflict of interest worth investigating? Did this Union Minister act on instructions from you?”

The Congress leader also asked if the family offices that were pressured to bail out the Adani FPO given assurances that this was only to save Gautam Adani's reputation and that the FPO would be subsequently cancelled and the money returned to the investors.

"Is it not a violation of Indian securities regulations to hide this relevant information from most investors and only to share it with a select few? Is it ethical to dupe FPO investors in this way," he asked.

“Among the anchor investors in the Adani Enterprises FPO were the Life Insurance Corporation of India (that bid 299 crore), State Bank of India Employees’ Pension Fund (bid 99 crore) and SBI Life Insurance Company (bid 125 crore). These publicly-owned institutions participated in the FPO despite the fact that the market price had dropped far below the issue price and that both LIC and SBI already owned large chunks of Adani Group equity. Were instructions issued to LIC and SBI to deploy the savings of crores of Indians to once again bail out the Adani Group,” he asked.
(With inputs from agencies)