The market value of the business empire owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man, fell by more than $50 billion this week after US research firm Hindenburg Research published a shocking report accusing him of fraud, international media reported. , quoted by News.ro.

Hindenburg Research has published an investigation into conglomerate Adani, accusing it of gross stock manipulation and an accounting fraud scheme that spanned decades.

Shares in Adani Group, the Indian energy and infrastructure conglomerate led by one of the world’s richest men, Gautam Adani, fell on Friday after a US research firm published sweeping fraud allegations that rattled businessmen in the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The stock market crash, which prompted Indian markets to suspend trading in several of Adani’s subsidiaries, came three days after Hindenburg Research, a New York firm, published a wide-ranging report accusing Adani, among other things, of artificially inflating the price . his shares for decades using a network of offshore shell companies linked to members of his family. The firm said it believed Adani’s companies were dangerously indebted and its share price was overvalued by more than 80%.

India’s Adani group has slammed Hindenburg’s allegations as “baseless” and “malicious” and is considering taking her to court.

But a sharp drop in its shares that began on Wednesday accelerated on Friday after US billionaire Bill Ackman, who owns a hedge fund, said a report by a US short-selling research firm was credible.

Adani shares, some of which have risen more than 500% in recent years, fell at the open in India’s stock market on Wednesday. The collapse continued on Friday, when trading resumed after Thursday was a holiday for the stock market.

Hindenburg said on Thursday that he fully stood by his report and believed that any legal action would be “unwarranted”. “If Adani is serious, it should also file a lawsuit in the US, where we operate. We have a long list of documents that we will request in the legal declassification process,” the company said in a statement on Twitter.

Shares in Adani Transmission, Adani Total Gas and Adani Green Energy – three of the group’s seven listed companies – fell 20% each on Friday, while shares in Adani Enterprises, the conglomerate’s parent company, fell 18%. Friday’s losses wiped out nearly $39 billion in market value.

Adani’s seven publicly traded conglomerate companies have lost a total of $48 billion in market capitalization since Wednesday, and Adani’s U.S. bonds also fell.

Who is Gautam Adani?

Adani, a college dropout and self-taught entrepreneur, is the fourth-richest person in the world, ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. He is also considered a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The 60-year-old tycoon founded the Adani group more than 30 years ago.

According to Bloomberg, Adani remains Asia’s richest man with a personal fortune of $113 billion, $30 billion more than fellow Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani. However, Friday’s losses will reduce that difference.

Hindenburg is not the first research firm to raise concerns about the finances of the sprawling Adani empire, which has borrowed $30 billion to enter industries ranging from logistics to mining and is aggressively expanding into other sectors such as media, data centers, airports and cement.

However, the accusations made by Hindenburg come at a delicate time. Adani Enterprises plans to raise 200 billion rupees ($2.5 billion) through a new bond issue this month. Offer ends on Tuesday.

The Adani group’s apparent closeness to the Indian government has long been seen in Indian business circles as one of its advantages over its competitors. While detractors say Adani’s success is largely due to his association with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who flew on an Adani-owned jet during his 2014 election campaign, the billionaire’s admirers say he has built the infrastructure essential to India’s economic growth has provided employment to millions of people. people and made investments that were perfectly aligned with the government’s policy goals.

And while India’s leaders have announced ambitious targets for the transition to renewable energy sources, the Modi government has repeatedly taken steps to help the Adani business, which derives most of its total revenue from coal-based power generation, delivery, mining and transportation, reports The Washington Post.