The Adani Short Sale Puts Investor Trust in India in Doubt
A rise in jingoistic nationalism has added a new element of impunity to the behavior of some corporate chiefs.
Questions to answer.
Photographer: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty
The big stock-market scams in India over the past 30 years exploited vulnerabilities in the local banking system. However, the country’s growing integration with the global economy and international capital means that preparations for the next big scandal may well be under way in an overseas financial center like London or Singapore, rather than in Mumbai.
Or that’s what Hindenburg Research seems to be insinuating in its report on Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, whom it accuses of “pulling the largest con in corporate history.” Released Tuesday evening in the US, it was met with a terse dismissal. The timing of the publication “shows a brazen, mala fide intention” to tarnish the group’s reputation just as its flagship firm starts a key $2.5 billion share sale, said a three-paragraph rebuttal by Adani’s chief financial officer to the short-seller’s detailed allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud. The lengthy note also asks 88 questions of the world’s fourth-richest person; none have been answered so far.