Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Reiterating that it was the “combination of targeted misinformation, and discredited allegations, the majority of them dating from 2004 to 2015,” billionaire business tycoon Gautam Adani on Tuesday junked the Hindenburg report published in January 2023.
Speaking at the AGM of his group companies, Adani said that on the eve of Republic Day this year, the US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research published a report to short the Group stocks just as it was planning to launch the largest Follow-on Public Offering in India’s history.
“The report was a combination of targeted misinformation and discredited allegations, the majority of them dating from 2004 to 2015.
“They were all settled by the appropriate authorities at that time. This report was a deliberate and malicious attempt aimed at damaging our reputation and generating profits through a short-term drive-down of our stock prices,” he said.
Subsequently, despite a fully subscribed FPO, the Group decided to withdraw and return the money to investors to protect their interests.
“While we promptly issued a comprehensive rebuttal, various vested interests tried to exploit the claims made by the short seller. These entities encouraged and promoted false narratives across various news and social media platforms,” Adani said.
He said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is yet to submit its report, but the Group remains “confident of governance and disclosure standards.”
“It is my commitment that we will continue to strive to keep improving this every single day,” he said.
Adani said the Supreme Court-appointed committee found no regulatory failure.
“The committee’s report not only observed that the mitigating measures undertaken by the company helped rebuilt confidence but also cited that there were credible charges of targeted destabilization of the Indian markets,” he said.
Adani also said that even during the crisis, the Group raised billions of dollars from overseas as well as domestic investors. And no credit agencies cut any of the Group’s ratings.
“This is the strongest validation of the belief that investors have in the company’s governance and capital allocation exercises.”
Reiterating the faith in India, Adani said, “While economic cycles are becoming increasingly hard to forecast, there is little doubt that India will become the world’s third largest economy well before 2030 and second largest by 2050.”
He also announced that Adani Green is now making the world’s largest hybrid renewables park in the world at Khavda in Gujarat.
“It will be the most complex and ambitious project that we have ever executed,” he said.
Spread over 72,000 acres, this project will be capable of generating 20 GW of green energy. “And we intend to build it faster than any project in our execution history.”
Adani reaffirmed that the Group will achieve 45 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.