Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With less than 100 hours to President-elect Donald Trump’s re-entry into the White House, the Democratic Party-supported Hindenburg Research, which the contemporary US’ deep state allegedly misused against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last couple of years, hurriedly shut its ‘financial butchery’ on Wednesday.
In India, its effect was immediate. The Adani stocks surged on Thursday following Hindenburg Research founder Nate Anderson’s announcement to wind down the short-seller firm he had founded in 2017.
NDTV led the gains with a 9.17 percent jump, while Ambuja Cements rose 4.02 percent and Adani Green advanced 3.76 percent on the NSE. Nine of the 10 Adani Group firms’ stocks traded positively, with only Adani Wilmar showing a marginal decline of 0.69 percent.
Other significant gains included Adani Ports (2.68 percent), Adani Power (2.58 percent, and Adani Enterprises (2.39 percent).
Anderson, 40, claimed he was disbanding the firm for “personal reasons” and that he faced no specific threats or health issues. But few believed him, the media reported on Thursday.
The Hindenburg Research’s closure marked a significant turn for the Adani Group, whose stocks faced a severe rout after the controversial American firm’s January 2023 report claiming ‘corporate irregularities’ wiped out more than USD150 billion in market capitalization of the Indian conglomerate. Both SEBI and Supreme Court-mandated investigations into these allegations remained largely inconclusive.
Highly controversial, Hindenburg Research was already facing several court cases in the USA.
According to the media reports, while he cited the toll of the “rather intense, and at times, all-encompassing” nature of the work” as the reason for his decision, critics quickly linked Hindenburg’s alleged ties with George Soros and the American deep state being under mounting pressure from the incoming Trump-2.0 administration.
Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh, in a cryptic post on, X said: “Kitne Ghazi Aaye, Kitne Ghazi Gaye.”
Typically, short-sellers like Anderson, who managed his firm’s own money but not that of others, bet against companies they claim are plagued with mismanagement or involved in some fraud/scam. Short-sellers borrow a stock to sell it in the expectation the price will fall, then repurchase the shares and pocket the difference. They book loss if the reverse happens.
Hindenburg in January 2023 published a report accusing the Adani group of “pulling the largest con in the corporate history,” wiping out more than USD 150 billion in value of the group’s shares at their lowest point. The Adani group vehemently denied all the allegations including being “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme for decades” and improper use of offshore tax havens to shore up group share prices.
A day before these allegations, Adani was ranked the world’s fourth-richest and Asia’s wealthiest person. Following the heavy selling of his group’s stocks, he slipped down the list. On Thursday, with a net worth of USD 75 billion, he was ranked at No.20, behind Mukesh Ambani (ranked 17th with USD 91.5 billion net worth).
“There is not one specific thing – no particular threat, no health issue, and no big personal issue,” Anderson wrote in a letter posted on the firm’s website. “The intensity and focus have come at the cost of missing a lot of the rest of the world and the people I care about. I now view Hindenburg as a chapter in my life, not a central thing that defines me.”
On January 4, outgoing US President Joe Biden honored George Soros, the infamous wealth destroyer, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award. Now Hindenburg, another infamous wealth destroyer, closing shop in a rush just days before the Biden departure, read between the lines, the message is clear, commented Deven Choksi, a political and market expert and managing director of DRChoksey Finserv.
The Hindenburg report against Adani led to a political storm in India. But as months passed, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition from litigators based on it while the Adani Group recovered lost ground with strong operating performance and stock recovering most of the losses.
Investor and commentator Ajay Bagga said Hindenburg operated in a grey zone, publishing negative reports and taking short positions, including via hedge funds who were not disclosing their positions.