Guwahati: Billionaire investor Geroge Soros has spoken on the Adani-Hindenburg dispute, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to “address questions from international investors and in parliament.”
BJP was quick to lash out the US tycoon stating that “George Soros an international entrepreneur has declared his ill-intention to intervene in democratic processes of India.”
Soros in a speech on Thursday said that Gautam Adani is “accused of stock manipulation and his stock collapsed like a house of cards.”
“Adani Enterprises tried to raise funds in the stock market but failed,” Soros said.
Adani Group has been accused by US shortseller Hindenburg of engaging in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud” over decades, a claim that Adani Group has stoutly denied.
Terming Modi and Adani as “close allies,” whose “fate is intertwined”, the 92-year-old billionaire investor said, “This will significantly weaken Modi’s stranglehold on India’s federal government and open the door to push for much-needed institutional reforms.”
“I may be naive, but I expect a democratic revival in India,” Soros said in his remarks delivered at the 2023 Munich Security Conference.
US-based short seller, in its report on January 24, raised concerns about shares of Adani group companies having a possibility of declining from their current levels owing to high valuations, “brazen stock manipulation”, and “accounting fraud”, among others.
The share prices of the Adani Group’s companies fell sharply after the report’s release.
The group’s flagship company, Adani Enterprises Limited, cancelled a fully subscribed Rs 20,000 crore follow-on public offer as a result of the group’s stocks’ ongoing sell-offs.
The Adani Group responded on January 29 in a lengthy 413-page paper, claiming that the analysis by Hindenburg Research was a “planned attack” on India, its growth trajectory, and its aspirations rather than a criticism of any particular company.
The Adani Group has attacked Hindenburg as “an unethical short seller” and stated that the report by the New York-based entity was “nothing but a lie”.
Opposition parties in Parliament also brought up the Adani-Hindenburg dispute with their demands for a joint parliamentary committee investigation into the matter. Congress has written separate letters to the SEBI chairperson and the governor of the Reserve Bank of India requesting an investigation into the accusations made against the Adani Group by Hindenburg Research.
The federal government notified the Supreme Court earlier on Monday that SEBI is qualified to manage the case and that it has consented to form a committee to defend investor interests after Hindenburg’s report on the Adani Group.
The Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informeda bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud that SEBI is well prepared to handle the issue and that the government has no objections to creating a committee to make recommendations for future investor protection.
However he added that the committee’s mandate is significant since it has an impact globally. The government will deliver names in a sealed cover, he added.
The Supreme Court last week requested a statement from the Ministry of Finance and SEBI on how to guarantee that Indian investors are safeguarded against abrupt volatility in the future after the recent meltdown caused by the Hindenburg Research report.
Meanwhile, in his Thursday speech, Soros termed India India an interesting case of democracy. “PM Modi maintains close relations with both open and closed societies. India is a member of the Quad (which also includes Australia, the US, and Japan), but it buys a lot of Russian oil at a steep discount and makes a lot of money on it,” Soros said.
The BJP attacked Soros as “a man who broke bank of England” and is “designated by nation an economic war criminal.”
“The pronouncements made by George Soros need to be understood. He makes such pronouncements to demolish Indian democracy so that his handpicked people run the government in the country,” BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani said in a press conference today.