Adani blasts ‘Soros-funded interests’ after media raise new questions about business empire

By Mark Thompson, CNN

London (CNN) — Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate has slammed what it described as “Soros-funded interests” after media outlets claimed the Adani Group had used complex and secretive offshore operations to boost its market value, citing documents obtained by a network of investigative journalists.

The documents were unearthed by the non-profit Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which counts billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations among its financial backers, and its research was shared with media including The Guardian and the Financial Times. CNN has not reviewed the documents.

OCCRP says the Soros foundations account for 4% of its funding. It is also backed by the US State Department, the UK Foreign Office and the Ford Foundation.

Reporting on the OCCRP investigation, the Financial Times said it shone a spotlight on relations between Adani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and exposed “bespoke investment structures” at a firm in Bermuda used exclusively by Adani associates to trade the group’s stocks.

The Financial Times said people familiar with the structures had claimed “parallel sets of books and a Russian doll of companies and funds” at the investment firm were used to mask the trades.

The Guardian reported that associates of the Adani family may have spent years discreetly acquiring stock in Adani Group companies via an undisclosed and complex operation in Mauritius during its rise to become one of the most powerful businesses in India.

The reports come seven months after Hindenburg Research — a company that makes money by betting against stocks it believes are overinflated or fraudulent — released a report accusing Adani of pulling off “the largest con in corporate history” and “brazen stock manipulation” that had massively boosted the value of the ports-to-energy conglomerate.

The Adani Group described the Hindenburg report as “nothing but a lie” and “a calculated attack on India.” But its value collapsed in the days following publication, wiping out about half of its founder’s wealth within weeks.

The company hit out equally forcefully at this week’s new reporting.

“We categorically reject these recycled allegations,” it said in a statement sent to CNN Thursday. “These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report.”

In a statement sent to CNN, the Open Society Foundations said they “are proud to be amongst a number of organizations providing general support to the OCCRP which acts entirely independently regarding the issues it chooses to investigate. What we are seeing now in India is a bogus attempt to discredit OCCRP’s work without engaging with its findings.”

The OCCRP has more than 40 donors, all of which have signed agreements giving total editorial control to the network, co-founder Drew Sullivan said this week in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

When Hindenburg published its report in late January, it pitched 88 questions to Adani that cast doubt on his conglomerate’s financial health. Those ranged from requests for details on the group’s offshore entities to why it has “such a convoluted, interlinked corporate structure.”

A 400-page rebuttal by the conglomerate failed to reassure investors, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) — India’s market regulator — launched an investigation into “the allegations made in the Hindenburg report as well as the market activity immediately preceding and post the publication of the report.”

Reuters reported Monday that SEBI had told India’s Supreme Court last Friday that its investigation was nearly complete.

Adani referenced the SEBI investigation in its statement Thursday, saying it was “vital to respect the ongoing regulatory process.”

“We have complete faith in the due process of the law and remain confident of the quality of our disclosures and corporate governance standards,” it added. “In light of these facts, the timing of these news reports is suspicious, mischievous and malicious — and we reject these reports in their entirety.”

Adani hails from the same state — Gujurat — as Modi, and has long been viewed as one of the prime minister’s closest allies in business. Modi used Adani’s private aircraft while he was campaigning to become prime minister in 2014. Over the years, both the ruling party and the industrialist have denied any suggestion of favoritism.

The Guardian — citing a document provided by the OCCRP — said government regulators, including SEBI, were aware of stock market activity using Adani offshore funds as far back as 2014.

Speaking to reporters in Mumbai on Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, a prominent lawmaker from India’s main opposition Congress party, urged Modi to investigate the allegations put forward by the Financial Times and The Guardian and criticized his silence on the matter.

“These are newspapers that affect the perception of our country in the world,” Gandhi said. “We are trying to show the world that we are a transparent economy… that India has a level playing field.”

“Why is this one gentleman who is close to the prime minister of India allowed to move a billion dollars to pump up his share price; to use that money to capture Indian assets [such as] airports [and] ports?… I don’t understand why the prime minister is not forcing an investigation. Why is he quiet?”

— Michelle Toh and Rhea Mogul contributed to this article.

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