The report came at a time when Adani Enterprises launched a follow-on public offer (FPO) worth Rs 20,000 crore.

Just as the Adani-Hindenburg saga was coming to an end with SEBI’s investigation into the 24th and final case, US short-seller Hindenburg published new allegations against the market regulator’s chairwoman Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch of investing in an offshore fund linked to Adani.

While the US short seller had already made allegations against the Adani Group in January 2023, he has now published allegations against the market regulator for not taking action against the group.

In his August 10 report, Hindenburg expressed surprise at the “lack of interest” and “lack of investigation” into the alleged undisclosed network of Adani companies in Mauritius and abroad.

Here is a timeline of how the Adani-Hindenburg saga has unfolded over the last year and a half.
On January 24, 2023, Hindenburg Research published a report titled “Adani Group: How the world’s third richest man pulled off the biggest fraud in corporate history.” Following the report’s publication, shares of the Adani Group plummeted by as much as 10 percent.

The report came at a time when Adani Enterprises launched a follow-on public offer (FPO) worth Rs 20,000 crore.

The Hindenburg report also claimed that SEBI had initiated investigations into Adani Group’s transactions, but due to political pressure, these investigations had not yielded any results even after more than one and a half years of investigation.

On January 26, the Adani Group responded to the allegations, saying that they were “baseless” accusations aimed at depressing the share price. Shares of Adani Enterprises and other group companies fell significantly. The report resulted in major losses for the company and retail investors.

As of January 31, 2023, Adani Enterprises FPO was fully subscribed 1.12 times.

In February 2023, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court demanding the establishment of a committee to investigate Hindenburg Research’s allegations.

On March 2, 2023, the Supreme Court asked SEBI to complete the investigation into the allegations raised in the report within two months to ascertain whether there was any manipulation of share prices and other financial irregularities. The top court also set up a six-member expert panel to investigate the case and report back to the court.

On March 8, the six-member expert panel submitted its first report in sealed form to the Supreme Court, saying there was “no discernible pattern of manipulation” in Adani’s group of companies and that there had been no regulatory failure.

On May 17, 2023, the court extended the deadline for submission of SEBI’s investigation report to August 14 after SEBI argued that it would be difficult to complete the investigation in two months as gathering information from external agencies would take time.

The markets regulator on August 14 asked the Supreme Court for another 15 days to file its report. Finally, on August 25, SEBI filed an affidavit saying that out of the 24 investigations in the Adani-Hindenburg matter, 22 are final in nature and 2 are preliminary in nature. SEBI is awaiting responses from external agencies on two investigations. The preliminary investigations covered 13 overseas branches of Adani companies. In addition, SEBI has sought details of FPI investments from five countries.

On November 24, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict after hearing a series of pleas on the allegations made against Adani in the Hindenburg report.

In January 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking a CBI investigation into the allegations against the Adani group. The court said that it was the sole jurisdiction of SEBI to look into issues of market regulation and manipulation of share prices. The Supreme Court also asked SEBI to complete its investigation in another three months.

Gautam Adani wrote on X on January 3, 2024: “The Supreme Court verdict shows that truth has prevailed. Satyameva Jayate. I am grateful to those who stood by us. Our humble contribution to India’s growth story will continue. Jai Hind.”

By June 2024, the share prices of Adani Group companies recovered and returned to pre-Hindenburg levels.
On July 2, 2024, Hindenburg announced that SEBI had served them with a notice of reply accusing them of violating Indian regulations. It said SEBI had accused them of sharing their intelligence on the Adani group with a New York-based hedge fund manager and allowing him to trade on that information.

Hindenburg Research denied SEBI’s allegations, saying it was an attempt to silence the organization because it had exposed corruption at the top of its political leadership.

On August 10, 2024, Hindenburg Research posted a cryptic message on X that read, “Something big coming soon, India.” On the same day, they published a report claiming that SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had invested in an offshore company involved in the Adani fund misappropriation case. The report also claimed that the involvement of the SEBI chairperson showed a lack of transparency at the market regulator in its investigation of the Adani group.

The next day, on August 11, 2024, SEBI chief Madhabi Buch and her husband released a joint statement calling the report baseless and saying their financial records were an open book. In a detailed joint statement released later in the day, Madhabi Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch refuted all allegations against Hindenburg as baseless.

The statement said that the investments in the funds were made from the income from their corporate jobs, salaries, bonuses and ESOPs. The investments in the alleged firm were made because the fund’s CIO, Anil Ahuja, was a childhood friend of Dhaval Buch and had nothing to do with Adani.

Previously, the alleged fund 360 One Wam had informed the stock exchanges in a statement that the fund was active between 2013 and 2019 and had not made any investments in Adani Group companies. It was also reported that 90 percent of the fund was invested in debt.

On August 11, 2024, the Adani Group also released an official statement saying: “We completely refute these allegations against the Adani Group. These are a repetition of discredited allegations that have been thoroughly investigated, found to be baseless and rejected by the Supreme Court back in January 2024.”

The day ended with an unusual press release from SEBI late in the evening, urging investors to remain calm and carefully consider their investment decisions.

However, on Monday, August 12, 2024, the US short seller asked the SEBI chairperson new questions, claiming that her response contained several key admissions and raised critical new questions.

In a social media post on “X,” the US short seller said: “SEBI Chairman Madhabi Buch’s response to our report contains several important admissions and raises numerous new critical questions.”

The US short seller also raised concerns about the financial reports of the SEBI chief’s Singaporean consulting firms during her tenure at SEBI.

Hindenburg also added in the new allegations that whistleblower documents revealed that Buch used her private email address to conduct business on behalf of her husband while she was a full-time member of SEBI. (ANI)

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