Hindenburg, again: Adani shares fall, but SEBI holds the fort
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Hindenburg fancied it would be another “bombshell;” it turned out a damp squib, 18 months after the publication of its January 24, 2023, “research” tanked the Adani shares and investors lost massively in the short term but their stocks bounced back subsequently.
Not this time, though. For, New Delhi, aware of how anti-Indian forces operate at different, global levels, was now careful. It was careful that more such ‘damaging’ reports would be planted in the obliging media to keep away investors in the India story.
The Hindenburg template is the same: follow the hit-and-run tactics of India’s Opposition parties, and attack the regulators, discredit all institutions, the country’s democracy, polity, and economy.
But this time Hindenburg Research may have bitten off more than it could chew.
Notably, under the direction of the Supreme Court of India, SEBI is currently probing Hindenburg’s claims in the Adani case and issued notices to Hindenburg. The American short-seller’s attempts are viewed as bringing the stock market regulator itself under a cloud and weakening India’s ongoing economic progress. This is part of the superpower rivalry—Hindenburg has a China connection as well!—to weaken the world’s largest democracy and the best-performing economy.
In its fresh “attack”, preceded by the August 10 tweet—“Something big soon India”—Hindenburg, the controversial, New York-based ‘financial terrorist’, facing court cases in the US itself, claimed on Saturday last that SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had a “conflict of interest” in the regulators’ ongoing probe into the Adani affair.
“Our life and finances are an open book,” she said, promptly rejecting the Hindenburg claims that the Buchs had invested in a firm that had an Adani connection.
But the short-seller hid the fact that their investment in a fund referred to in the Hindenburg report was made in 2015 when they were private citizens, almost two years before Madhabi Buch joined SEBI.
The SEBI chief and her husband, Dhaval Buch, expressed readiness to provide any financial documents to authorities for further scrutiny and criticized Hindenburg for attempting character assassination.
They termed the Hindenburg allegations as baseless and denied the “insinuations” made in the report.
“In the context of allegations made in the Hindenburg Report dated August 10, 2024, against us, we would like to state that we strongly deny the baseless allegations and insinuations made in the report. The same is devoid of any truth. Our life and finances are an open book. All disclosures as required have already been furnished to SEBI over the years,” they said in a joint statement.
“We have no hesitation in disclosing any financial documents, including those that relate to the period when we were strictly private citizens, to any and every authority that may seek them. Further, in the interest of complete transparency, we will be issuing a detailed statement in due course,” the statement said.
They said that it is unfortunate that Hindenburg Research, against whom SEBI has taken enforcement action and issued a show-cause notice, has chosen to attempt character assassination in response to the same.
Hindenburg alleged that the Buchs held stakes in offshore funds linked to entities involved in the alleged Adani cases.
After the Hindenburg allegations, shares of the Adani Group companies were under pressure temporarily on Monday, falling up to 17 percent on the BSE in the intraday trade.
