As per latest financial details coming in, Reliance Group Chairman Mukesh Ambani has dethroned Gautam Adani to become India’s richest person. Infact, Mukesh Ambani is right now Asia’s richest person as well.
Meanwhile, Billionaire Gautam Adani is attempting to regain investor confidence after his company called off its share sale. Here is the timeline of the events..
Controlling the fire
Adani Enterprises said it would return $2.5bn (£2bn) raised from the sale to investors.
It further reassured that this move won’t impact “our existing operations and future plans”.
It has been an eventful but arduous week which began with a US investment firm making fraud claims against Adani Group firms, which Adani has denied.
However, the group’s companies have still seen $108bn wiped off their market value over the past few days.
Background
The conglomerate is beleaguered by allegations of pulling off the ‘largest fraud’ in corporate history, a claim made by US-based investment firm Hindenburg Research.
It did so in a report accusing the Adani group of decades of “brazen” stock manipulation and accounting fraud.
The Adani Group responded by calling the report “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations”- a move not enough to calm investor fears.
Hindenburg, however, fired back, saying that the Adani Group had “failed to specifically answer 62 of our 88 questions”.
Public offer no more
Adani has issued a video message to investors, explaining the decision behind his flagship firm, Adani Enterprises, withdrawing a fully subscribed follow-on public offer (FPO).
FPO is when a company, which has already been listed on an exchange, issues new shares to investors.
“Yesterday’s decision of its withdrawal would have surprised many. But considering the volatility of the market seen yesterday, our board strongly felt that it wouldn’t have been morally correct to proceed with FPO,” said Adani.
Slipping down the ranks
Till now Adani stayed as the third-richest person in the world and the richest from Asia and is now 16th on the Forbes real-time billionaires list.
He’s lost $48bn of his personal wealth.
He has now been overtaken by China’s Zhong Shanshan as the second-richest Asian.
Rival Mukesh Ambani now has the highest net worth in Asia, and tenth highest globally.
Returning funds received
Foreign institutional investors and corporate funds supported the group – on 30 January, Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company, backed by a member of the UAE royal family, invested $400 million in the share sale.
This funding would have represented about 16% of the offering and would follow an almost $2 billion investment in Adani’s companies last year.
The International Holding Co now claims that its funds have been returned after Adani backed out.
Shares plunge
“While the decision to withdraw its flotation isn’t unique, and we understand floats get pulled for various reasons” the funds have been transferred back to its account, it said in a statement.
As of Feb 2 Adani Enterprises shares were at their lowest since March 2022.
With a drop of nearly 23% the flagship firm’s shares were at their lowest since March last year.
Other companies of the group, Adani Total Gas, Adani Green Energy each lose 10%, and Adani Transmission and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone shed 5%.
What now?
SBI has asked lenders for details of their exposure to the group.
Citigroup’s wealth arm has stopped accepting securities of the Adani group as collateral for margin loans.
Credit Suisse has stopped accepting the group’s bonds.
Political fallout
Adani has been seen as being close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, something the opposition has claimed helped his business with his political ties, which he denies.
On Thursday, opposition parties demanded a discussion in parliament about the risk to Indian investors along with a probe into Hindenburg’s allegations.
