'Malicious' Hindenburg Report Timed To Damage Upcoming FPO: Adani Group

The Adani Group has dismissed a report by Hindenburg Research, which claims that key companies in the group have "substantial debt", as "selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations".

In a statement on Wednesday (25 January), the group alleged that Hindenburg Research published the report "without making any attempt to contact us or verify the factual matrix". 

"The report is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations that have been tested and rejected by India’s highest courts," Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh said in the statement.

He also alleged that the report has been published to damage the group's upcoming $2.5 billion FPO.

"The timing of the report’s publication clearly betrays a brazen, mala fide intention to undermine the Adani Group’s reputation with the principal objective of damaging the upcoming Follow-on Public Offering from Adani Enterprises, the biggest FPO ever in India," Singh said.

Hindenburg Research, a US short seller, in its report held short positions in Adani Group, accusing the conglomerate of improper extensive use of entities set up in offshore tax havens and expressing concern about high debt levels, reports The Hindu.

Responding to the report, Singh said that the investor community has always reposed faith in the Adani Group "on the basis of detailed analysis and reports prepared by financial experts and leading national and international credit rating agencies".

"Our informed and knowledgeable investors are not influenced by one-sided, motivated and unsubstantiated reports with vested interests," Singh added.