Faith of India’s retail investors remained intact in Adani Group’s stocks even a year after Hindenburg Research’s scathing report last January.
Exchange data compiled by Bloomberg shows that individual holdings in nine of the group’s 10 stocks at the end of December are higher than they were before the short-seller’s attack on the multinational conglomerate.
Billions of dollars in investments from marquee funds including GQG Partners LLC, and observation from the Supreme Court that it won’t take media reports on Adani as the gospel truth, has renewed investor confidence in the group stocks.
Notably, the group’s market value has increased by more than USD 60 billion since late November, and is just USD 50 billion away from erasing the losses spurred by Hindenburg’s report.
The recovery likely rewarded retail investors who used the selloff as a buying opportunity.
The data further revealed that while foreign investors, insurance companies and high-networth individuals pared their holdings in various group entities in 2023, the number of retail investors, those with at least Rs 2,00,000 (USD 2,411) to invest, jumped 42 per cent to 6.7 million in Adani companies.
Hindenburg’s allegations of stock manipulation and fraud, repeatedly denied by the group, had wiped off more than USD 150 billion from its market value at one point.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had said there were no grounds for taking away the investigation of the Adani group of companies in the Hindenburg report from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
It granted the markets regulator three months to complete the investigation of two pending matters and also refused to interfere in the agency’s matter.
The CJI-led bench refused to nix SEBI’s FPI regulations, saying courts cannot enter into the domain of regulatory regime. The apex court also refused to interfere with SEBI’s probe into the episode and declined to set up an SIT.
The apex court said the Centre and SEBI would look into whether Hindenburg Research violated any law on short-selling. If there is a violation, they may take any action in accordance with law.