Adani family secretly invested in own shares, documents claim

NT Bureau, Agencies

New Delhi: Billionaire Gautam Adani's group was on Thursday hit by fresh allegations that it used family associates to secretly invest hundreds of millions of dollars through "opaque" Mauritius-based investment funds to fuel the spectacular rise in group stocks from 2013 to 2018.

The conglomerate vehemently denied the charge.

The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) said documents obtained by it revealed details of a complex offshore operation in two Mauritius-based funds managed by the partners of the promoter family to support prices of shares of group companies from 2013 to 2018 - a period during which the ports-toenergy conglomerate saw meteoric rise to become India's largest and most powerful businesses.

OCCRP said two close associates of Vinod Adani -- the elder brother of group founder, and chairman Gautam Adani -- are sole beneficiaries of Mauritiusbased companies through which the money appeared to flow.

Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli from the United Arab Emirates and Chang Chung-Ling from Taiwan spent years trading hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Adani group stock through two Mauritius-based funds that were overseen by a Dubai-based company run by a known employee of Vinod Adani, OCCRP claimed.

Market re gulator SEBI had been handed evidence in early 2014 of alleged suspicious stock market activity by the Adani Group, OCCRP said citing a letter. U K Sinha, who headed the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in 2014, is now a director and chairperson of Adani-owned news broadcaster NDTV.

The fresh broadside, which comes months after US short-selling firm Hindenburg Research published an explosive report in January that accused Adani Group of running the "largest con in corporate history", sent all 10 listed Adani stocks down.

Shares of flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd closed 3.72 per cent lower after dipping as much as 5.2 per cent. Other group stocks closed 2-3.5 per cent lower.

Hindenburg had alleged corporate fraud and stock price manipulation at the conglomerate and raised questions on Vinod Adani's role.

The Group had denied Hindenburg allegations, which wiped away close to USD 150 billion in market value of the group and cost Gautam Adani his prime spot on the world rich list.

The Group had stated that Vinod Adani has "no role in the day to day affairs" of the company.

On the OCCRP allegations, the Group termed them "recycled allegations" and called them "yet another bid by (George) Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the Hindenburg report".

An independent adjudicating authority and an appellate tribunal had confirmed there was no over-valuation and the transactions were in accordance with law, it said.

DESPITE MODI GOVT'S BEST EFFORTS, TRUTH IS OUT: OPPN

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh questioned the role of SEBI in investigating the role of shell companies linked to the Adani Group.

"Despite the Modi government's best efforts, the truth will not stay suppressed forever. However, the full story about the flow of Benami funds into the Adani Group, how foreign citizens came to play a role in critical national infrastructure and how PM (Narendra) Modi 'violated rules, regulations and norms to enrich his close friends' can only be revealed by a JPC," he said.

CPI(M) charged that the links of the Gujarat-based business conglomerate with Modi have ensured no action against it.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asked PM Modi to come clean on fresh allegations against the Adani Group and said he must order a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into it as India's reputation is at stake ahead of the G20 meeting in the country.

Gandhi said this is a "national matter" and that all opposition parties are together on the issue.