Hindenburg has filed a detailed reply to Adani on their website, in the reply Hindenburg said that the fraud cannot be obfuscated by nationalism or a bloated response that ignores every key llegation we raised.
After richest Indian Gautam Adani's group on Sunday likened the damning allegations made by short seller Hindenburg Research to a "calculated attack" on India, its institutions and growth story, saying the allegations are "nothing but a lie".
Flagrant breach of applicable securities and foreign exchange laws
In the reply, Hindenburg has said that Adani also claimed we have committed a “flagrant breach of applicable securities and foreign exchange laws.” Despite Adani’s failure to identify any such laws, this is another serious accusation that we categorically deny.
It also predictably tried to lead the focus away from substantive issues and instead stoked a nationalist narrative, claiming our report amounted to a “calculated attack on India.” In short, the Adani Group has attempted to conflate its meteoric rise and the wealth of its Chairman, Gautam Adani, with the success of India itself.
We disagree. To be clear, we believe India is a vibrant democracy and an emerging superpower with an exciting future. We also believe India’s future is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation.
In the report, 88 specific inquiries were made of the Adani Group in the study. Adani did not precisely address 62 of them in its response. Instead, it largely gave generic deflections and groupings of questions.
Other times, Adani did not substantively respond to the issues highlighted; instead, it merely cited its own papers and claimed the questions or pertinent factors were settled.
We outline its responses to the few questions it did address, which mostly supported our conclusions.
But before we do, we should point out that the central claims of our study, which centred on a number of dubious transactions with offshore corporations, were simply ignored.
You can read the whole detailed reply here.
Adani's 413 page response to Hindenberg
In a 413-page response, Adani Group said the report was driven by "an ulterior motive" to "create a false market" to allow the US firm to make financial gains.
"This is not merely an unwarranted attack on any specific company but a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India," it said.
Stating that the allegations in Hindenburg Research's January 24 report are "nothing but a lie", it said the document is "a malicious combination of selective misinformation and concealed facts relating to baseless and discredited allegations to drive an ulterior motive".
"This is rife with conflict of interest and intended only to create a false market in securities to enable Hindenburg, an admitted short seller, to book massive financial gain through wrongful means at the cost of countless investors," it said.
It went on to question the credibility and ethics of Hindenburg, and said the mala fide intention underlying the report were apparent given its timing when Adani Enterprises Limited is undertaking one of the largest ever further public offering of equity shares in India.
"Hindenburg has not published this report for any altruistic reasons but purely out of selfish motives and in flagrant breach of applicable securities and foreign exchange laws," it said. "The report is neither 'independent' nor 'objective' nor 'well researched'." Activist short seller Hindenburg Research, the firm which caught global attention with takedowns of electric-vehicle makers Nikola and Lordstown Motors, alleged in a report on Wednesday that its two-year investigation found the Adani Group "engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades".
(With agency inputs)
