Guwahati: The industrialist Gautam Adani’s net worth continued to decline as shares of the companies in the Adani Group largely traded in the negative. The business tycoon lost $8.21 billion on Monday, which dropped him to number 11 on the Forbes Billionaires list.
Adani’s personal fortune lost $34 billion in just three trading days, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index.
The shares of Adanni Group companies plummeted following the publication of a report by Hindenburg Research alleging “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud.”
The billionaire’s overall worth dropped to $84.4 billion on Friday after falling by another $20.8 billion on Wednesday. Adani boasted of having a net worth of $121 billion before the report was out.
Adani currently ranks just one spot above rival and chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. Mukesh Ambani, whose net worth is $82.2 billion. Adani’s current fortune is $84.4 billion.
The blistering analysis by the US-based activist short-seller firm Hindenburg Research claims that Adani Group has engaged for many years in illegal activities such outright stock manipulation, money laundering, and accounting fraud.
According to this report, the stock prices of the group’s seven listed companies increased by an average of 819 percent over a three-year period.
The Hindenburg report stated: “We have uncovered evidence of brazen accounting fraud, stock manipulation, and money laundering at Adani, taking place over the course of decades. Adani has pulled off this gargantuan feat with the help of enablers in government and a cottage industry of international companies that facilitate these activities.”
The US-based short seller also claimed that Vinod Adani, Gautam Adani’s older brother, operated a maze of phoney businesses through his close friends. 38 Mauritius shell companies operated by Adani’s older brother Vinod Adani were located by Hindenburg. Moreover, it revealed the existence of organisations secretly under Vinod Adani’s control in Cyprus, Singapore, the UAE, and a number of Caribbean Islands.
Adani is currently ranked lower on the Billionaires Index than Mexico’s Carlos Slim, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.