As share prices of his conglomerate continue to decline, Gautam Adani has dropped out of the top 10 richest persons in the world and may soon lose his title as Asia’s richest person.
The Indian tycoon lost $34 billion in personal fortune in just three trading days, falling from fourth to eleventh on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Last Tuesday, Hindenburg Research published a damning report headlined ‘How the World’s 3rd Richest Man is Pulling the Largest Con in Corporate History’ in which it accused the Adani Group of engaging in a “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme.”
A catastrophic attack: The timing of Hindenburg’s report has been unfortunate for the Adani Group, which is launching a secondary share sale of Adani Enterprises, the company that serves as the centrepiece of the Adani business conglomerate. The auction ends on Tuesday.
But the Adani Group had not taken the attack lightly, in fact, it has put up strong rebuttals against Hindenburg’s allegations and said on Thursday it was exploring legal action.
- On Sunday, the conglomerate also issued a 413-page report against Hindenburg, saying its report is “nothing but a lie.”
- “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.”
Hindenburg doubles down: The research firm responded on Sunday the Adani Group failed to answer most of the questions it had asked and had “predictably tried to lead the focus away from substantive issues and instead stoked a nationalist narrative” and tried to conflate Adani’s rise with the success of India itself.
- “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. fraud is a fraud, even when it’s perpetrated by one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.”
Still wealthy: Adani, who has an estimated $84.4 billion in wealth as of January 31, is still the richest Asian in the world, although his position on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index has fallen to the eleventh place from fourth earlier this week. His wealth has decreased by about $34 billion so far this year.
According to Bloomberg, this is the worst blow to the Indian billionaire’s wealth and the steepest market-driven decline for anyone in Asia.
