New Delhi: Adani stocks continued to slip in the share market on Monday, February 20, and the Adani Group’s market capitalisation slipped below $100 billion. This, according to Livemint means a fall of over $135 billion, since the Hindenburg Research report which accused the group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud was released on January 24.
The decline in Adani Enterprises was the maximum compared to other group companies on Monday, according to Business Today. The Adani Group’s flagship shares slipped by about 9.33%.
There were consequences on the net worth of the group chairman too, as Gautam Adani’s net worth slipped to less than $50 billion today. As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the billionaire’s net worth slipped to $49.1 billion – placing him 25th on the global rich list today. Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, ranked Adani at the 25th spot too but pegged his net worth lower, at $47.6 billion. Forbes said he has lost $2.8 billion in the last 24 hours.
The Telegraph reports that Gautam Adani is no longer India’s richest man, falling far behind Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani who is worth $85 billion. The newspaper writes that the Ahmedabad-based billionaire was worth $147 billion at his peak and was for some time, also the richest person in Asia and the second-richest person in the world. Only Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk was richer than him at that point.
Adani Group’s stocks had been climbing at a rapid rate over the past year until the downward trend set in sharply, after short-seller Hindenburg’s allegations of several corporate malpractices spooked markets.
The Adani group has denied the allegations levelled by Hindenburg in a 413-page response, and has also been repaying loans and trying to convince investors that it is not about to default on its many loans. It has billion-dollar infrastructure projects at hand from ports, airports, roads, green energy, power generation and transmission, gas distribution, data centres and the media.
Opposition members of parliament in the Budget session came together in both Houses of Parliament on the issue of allegations against the Adani Group and raised slogans terming the Narendra Modi government an “Adani sarkar”. They also demanded that the prime minister tell the nation what his government is doing on the issue.
The Union government has steadfastly refused to either allow a discussion or make a statement or institute a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on issues of alleged corporate malfeasance in the Adani matter.
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