Gautam Adani is a self-made billionaire.
Indian billionaire, Gautam Adani’s fortune was wiped out by more than $20 billion (£16 billion) on Friday, as investors fled his companies for a second day, prompted by fraud claims made by a US investment firm.
The Adani Group has dismissed the report as malicious, but this has not stopped the outrage.
The main opposition party in India has demanded an investigation.
The firm’s publicly traded companies have lost approximately $50 billion in market value.
Shares Fall Drastically
Shares in the company’s flagship, Adani Enterprises, fell nearly 20% on Friday, while some of the group’s other publicly traded companies fell even more, causing trading in Mumbai to halt automatically.
According to Forbes, Mr. Adani has dropped from the third richest person in the world to seventh on the rich list, with an estimated net worth of more than $96 billion.
The fallout comes just days after Hindenburg Research, a firm specializing in “short-selling,” or betting against a company’s share price in the expectation that it will fall, published a report accusing the Adani Group of “brazen” stock manipulation and accounting fraud over a decade.
Its report came ahead of Adani Enterprises’ planned share sale, now seeing little demand.
Mr. Adani is a self-made billionaire who has amassed a fortune through investments in ports, airports, renewable energy, and other industries. In the last three years, the value of his companies’ shares has skyrocketed, increasing his wealth.
Taking Legal Against Adani
His company has stated that it is considering legal action against Hindenburg.
Mr. Adani is a friend of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For a long time, opposition politicians have said that he has used his political connections to his advantage, which he has always denied.
Many Indian banks and state-owned insurance companies have invested in or loaned billions of dollars to Adani Group companies.
Some of India’s leading public sector banks told Reuters they needed clarification about the risks associated with their exposure to the firm.
The incident, however, has impacted the wider stock market, helping to send India’s benchmark Nifty 50 stock index down more than 1% on Friday.
SOURCE – (BBC)
