Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, while addressing the shareholders, in the conglomerate’s annual report 2022-23, said that the report by US-based short seller Hindenburg Research was a combination of targeted misinformation and outdated, discredited allegations. He said that it was aimed at damaging the reputation of Adani Group and generating profits through a deliberate drive-down of its stock prices. While maintaining that the Group will continue to consolidate what it has built while looking at expanding its horizons, Gautam Adani said that the conglomerate is confident of its governance and disclosure standards.
“On the eve of our Republic Day, a US-based shortseller published a report just as we were planning to launch the largest Follow-on Public Offering (FPO) in India’s history… Subsequently, despite a fully subscribed FPO, we decided to withdraw and return the money to our investors to protect their interests,” he said.
While discussing the adverse impact of the report on the company, he said, “The short-selling incident resulted in several adverse consequences that we had to confront. Even though we promptly issued a comprehensive rebuttal, various vested interests tried to opportunistically exploit the claims made by the short seller. These entities engaged and encouraged false narratives across various news and social media platforms.”
Adani further stated that the Supreme Court of India constituted an Expert Committee to look into the matter and made the report public in May 2023, and they did not find any regulatory failure. “The Committee’s Report not only observed that the mitigating measures undertaken by your company helped rebuild confidence but also cited that there were credible charges of concerted destabilization of the Indian markets. It also confirmed the quality of our Group’s disclosures and found no instance of regulatory failure or any breach,” he said.
Hindenburg Research released its report on Adani Group in January, accusing the conglomerate of stock manipulation, fraudulent transactions and other financial misdeeds.
Gautam Adani also summarised the financial performance of the company for FY 2022-23. “Our FY22-23 operational and financial results are as much a testimony to our success as testimony to our continued expansion of our customer base – be it on the B2B side or the B2C side,” he said. He also applauded the pace at which Adani Group made acquisitions and turned them around across the national landscape and how the conglomerate “fuelled a significant part of expansion”. “Our national and international partnerships are proof of our governance standards. This scale of our international expansions is validated by our success in Australia, Israel, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka,” Adani said. Adani Group posted total income growth by 96 per cent to Rs 1,38,715 crore, and total PAT grew by 218 per cent to Rs 2,473 crore.