- Shares in the company’s flagship Adani Enterprises fell nearly 20%.
- The fallout comes just days after Hindenburg Research.
- His company has stated that it is considering legal action against Hindenburg.
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 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.
Gautam Adani slips to the 7th spot
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 that specializes 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, which is 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.
His company has stated that it is considering legal action against Hindenburg.
Mr. Adani, an ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has long faced allegations from opposition politicians that he has benefited from his political connections, which he denies.
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 were unconcerned about the risks associated with their exposure to the firm.
The incident, however, has had an impact on the wider stock market, helping to send India’s benchmark Nifty 50 stock index down more than 1% on Friday.
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