Hindenburg Research’s founder has made the decision to disband the short-selling firm that was behind reports that wiped out tens of billions from the market values of companies such as India’s Adani Group and Icahn Enterprises.
Nate Anderson, who founded Hindenburg in 2017, explained the move by citing the toll of the “rather intense, and at times, all-encompassing” nature of the work. This reasoning was shared in a note published on Wednesday.
“The plan has been to wind up after we finished the pipeline of ideas we were working on,” he stated. “That day is today.”
“So over the next 6 months or so I plan to work on a series of materials and videos to open-source every aspect of our model and how we conduct our investigations,” Anderson added.
Hindenburg Research’s notable short-selling campaigns
Hindenburg Research was named after the infamous 1937 disaster involving Germany’s Hindenburg airship, which caught fire while flying over New Jersey. The firm made its name by identifying potential wrongdoing and publishing reports detailing its findings, then betting against the target companies in hopes of profiting from their decline. Other investors often followed suit, using Hindenburg’s research to inform their own trades.
On its website, Hindenburg described its focus on “man-made disasters,” such as accounting irregularities, mismanagement, and undisclosed related-party transactions. One of its most notable reports came in 2023, when the firm took a short position against the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, leading to a more than $100 billion loss in the company’s market value. Hindenburg accused Adani Group of misusing offshore tax havens, which the company denied.
In November 2023, US prosecutors indicted Gautam Adani, the billionaire chairman of Adani Group, in New York over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar bribery and fraud scheme.
Hindenburg’s other high-profile targets included electric truck maker Nikola Corp in 2020, where the firm accused the company of misleading investors about its technological progress. Hindenburg famously challenged a video that showed a Nikola truck cruising at high speed, revealing that the truck was actually rolling down a hill. In 2022, Nikola’s founder, Trevor Milton, was convicted of fraud after being found guilty of lying to investors.
In 2023, Hindenburg also shorted Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises and Jack Dorsey-led Block Inc.