The Congress Friday demanded a “serious investigation” by the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India into a report by New York-based investor research firm Hindenburg Research accusing industrialist Gautam Adani’s companies of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.
Congress said, should normally not react to a research report on an individual company or business group prepared by a hedge fund.
“But the forensic analysis by Hindenburg Research of the Adani Group demands a response from the Congress party. This is because the Adani Group is no ordinary conglomerate: it is closely identified with Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the time he was Chief Minister,” Congress communications head Jairam Ramesh said in a statement.
“Furthermore the high exposure of financial institutions such as the Life Insurance Company of India and the State Bank of India to the Adani Group has implications for financial stability and for the crores of Indians whose savings are stewarded by these pillars of the financial system,” Former union minister for environment Ramesh added.
After losing up to 8 per cent on Wednesday following the release of a report on the group by Hindenburg Research, the shares of all 9 listed Adani Group companies came under huge selling pressure on Friday and the group had lost nearly 3.4 lakh crore in market capitalisations by Friday afternoon. The 18.5 per cent decline in aggregate market cap decline on Friday has taken the overall decline in group market capitalisation by over Rs 4.2 lakh crore since Tuesday’s closing.
At 3 PM on Friday, atleast 4 of the 9 listed Adani Group stocks had hit the lower circuit. While shares of Adani Transmission, Adani and Adani Total Gas were down 20 per cent each at 3 PM, Adani Green Energy and Adani Enterprises were down 19.9 and 19.3 percent respectively. Adani Ports (-17.7%), Ambuja Cements (-17.3%) and ACC (-14.3%) also fell sharply during the day. Adani Power and Adani Wilmar shares were also trading at the lower circuit and were down 5 per cent each.
