Anurag Kumar
Adani Group rejected on Monday the Financial Times’ “renewed” efforts to “rehash old and baseless allegations” against the conglomerate. The Financial Times was described by Adani Group as “renewed.” The newspaper was accused of conducting an unrelenting campaign against a group of companies owned by Gautam Adani in order to “advance vested interests under the guise of public interest.” The newspaper claimed that the media organization was preparing an article “on over-invoicing of coal imports” in an attempt to destabilize the finances of one of the largest companies in India.
“Having failed earlier, the FT is making another effort to financially destabilise the Adani Group by raking up an old, baseless allegation of over-invoicing of coal imports,” Adani Group stated in a media release.
“The Financial Times, in conjunction with its partners, is once again endeavoring to discredit the Adani Group by rehashing old, unfounded allegations ” “This furthers their campaign to promote vested interests under the guise of the public interest,” the statement continued.
The Adani Group characterized the alleged story as “the subsequent assault” spearheaded by Dan McCrum, a journalist for the Financial Times, “who, in conjunction with the OCCRP, disseminated an untruthful account of the Adani Group on August 31, 2023.”
On the aforementioned date, McCrum and John Reed reported that two individuals purportedly associated with Vinod Adani, the brother of Gautam Adani, were “accumulating and trading substantial positions in shares of the Adani Group” through Bermuda’s Global Opportunities Fund. The two individuals were identified as Chang Chung-Ling from Taiwan and Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli from the United Arab Emirates. They claimed that an employee of Vinod Adani oversaw their investments, “raising doubts as to whether they were front companies employed to circumvent regulations governing share price manipulation for Indian corporations.”
McCrum was today accused by the Adani Group of collaborating with OCCRP on the August 31 article. “The OCCRP is funded by George Soros, who has openly declared his hostility against the Adani Group,” stated the report.
According to the website’s information, OCCRP is “a reporting platform for investigations established by twenty-four non-profit investigative centers located in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.”
The Adani Group stated today that the newspaper was reviving old allegations in an attempt to financially destabilize the conglomerate.
“The proposed FT story is grounded in General Alert Circular No.11/2016/CI issued by the DRI on 30 March 2016.” The FT’s explicit bias is demonstrated through their selective mention of the Adani Group, whereas the DRI’s Circular, which serves as the foundation for the entire discourse, encompasses up to forty importers, including companies affiliated with the Adani Group. “In addition to prominent private power generators in India such as Reliance Infra, JSW Steels, and Essar, this list also comprises the NTPC and MSTC, as well as the state power generating companies of Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and others,” the statement continued.
“Regarding Knowledge Infrastructure, one of the forty importers identified in the General Alert Circular, it is important to mention that the appellate tribunal (CESTAT) dismissed the DRI’s Show Cause Notice, which claimed an overvaluation in the import of coal. Moreover, on January 24, 2023, the Honorable Supreme Court of India dismissed the DRI’s appeal as withdrawn, noting that “we appreciate the Government’s stance in avoiding pointless litigation.” “The matter concerning the overvaluation of coal imports was unequivocally resolved by the highest court of law in India,” the statement continued.
The proposed article by FT was deemed “shrewd recycling and selective misrepresentation of publicly available facts” by the Adani Group today. It was claimed that the aforementioned narrative disregarded India’s regulatory and judicial authorities and processes in order to reach a “predetermined conclusion” by suppressing judicial decisions.
A report was released in January by American short-seller Hindenburg, which levied allegations of account fraud and stock manipulation against Adani Group. Despite dismissing the report as “maliciously mischievous” and “unresearched,” it precipitated a precipitous decline in Adani Group’s stock price. Adani, who was the third richest individual on the planet at the time of the report’s publication, lost 80.6 billion dollars in wealth in less than one month.
Twelvety billion dollars was the estimated value of Gautam Adani prior to the Hindenburg report. His net worth had significantly diminished to forty billion dollars. George Soros, an American investor and short-seller, had previously expressed the view that the unrest encompassing Adani’s corporate dominion could potentially pave the way for a “democratic revival” in the nation.
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In recent months, Adani has regained a portion of his lost wealth as a result of Indian-American investor Rajiv Jain’s investment in Adani Group’s shares.
Adani is the twenty-fourth richest individual in the world at present, according to the Forbes Billionaire’s index, with a substantial net worth of $54.6 billion.
