Adani Group firms' shares and bonds tumble
Shares and bonds of Adani Group firms tumbled on Thursday following its chairman Billionaire Indian industrialist Gautam Adani was charged with paying hundreds of millions of dollars of bribes in US.
Shares in Adani Green Energy plunged 16% and stocks for many other firms in the conglomerate, including flagship firm Adani Enterprises lost more than 10%, reports Reuters.
The group lost $20 billion in value in Thursday's trade in India, putting its firms' combined market capitalisation at $148 billion. Before last year's Hindenburg report, the group's market value was $235 billion.
Adani dollar bonds slumped, with prices down between 3-5c on bonds for Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone.
US prosecutors indicted Adani for his alleged role in a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials, plunging his conglomerate deep into crisis for the second time in two years.
Multiple counts of fraud - which US authorities say involved a firm that was listed in New York and affected American investors - were levelled against Adani, who is one of the world's richest people, as well as seven other defendants.
The charges follow much turmoil for the Adani Group last year after short-seller Hindenburg Research issued a report that accused it of using offshore tax havens improperly - which the company denied.
Arrest warrants have been issued in the US for Adani and his nephew Sagar and prosecutors plan to hand those warrants to foreign law enforcement, court records show. Sagar is an executive director at Adani Green and currently oversees its "strategic and financial matters".
Adani Group said in a statement that the allegations were "baseless and denied", adding that it would seek "all possible legal recourse".
US federal prosecutors said the defendants agreed to pay the bribes to Indian government officials to obtain power supply contracts expected to yield $2 billion of profit over 20 years, and develop India's largest solar power plant project.
They also said the Adanis and another executive at Adani Green Energy, former CEO Vneet Jaain, raised more than $3 billion in loans and bonds by hiding their corruption from lenders and investors.
The three were charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. The Adanis were also charged in a parallel US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil case.
"Gautam and Sagar Adani were engaged in the bribery scheme during a September 2021 note offering by Adani Green that raised $750 million, including approximately $175 million from US investors," the SEC said in a press statement, opens new tab, adding that a company central to the scheme, Azure Power, use to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
"The Adani Green offering materials included statements about its anti-corruption and anti-bribery efforts that were materially false or misleading in light of Gautam and Sagar Adani's conduct," it added.
