Indian billionaire Gautam Adaniâs wealth is evaporating, as Adani Group companies have lost a combined $72 billion in market value since U.S. short seller Hindenburg Research published a report on the Indian conglomerate last week.
Once Forbesâ third richest billionaire, Adani has fallen back from his quick rise up the ranks, now falling to eighth on the Forbes real-time billionaires list at $88.2 billion, putting him behind Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helu.
Share price movements in Adani companies were mixed on Monday, with flagship firm Adani Enterprises
512599,
up 4% but Adani Total Gasâs
542066,
shares down 20%.
The group published a lengthy rebuttal to Hindenburgâs claims of alleged fraud on Sunday. In a 413-page response, Adani said it was under no obligation to respond to the âbaselessâ allegations but did so in the interest of transparency to its stakeholders.
The group called the report was âa malicious combination of selective misinformation and concealed factsâ and the short seller had âmale fide intentionâ timing the publication with Adani Enterprises $2.5 billion share sale.
Hindenburg responded, saying Adani had âfailed to specifically answerâ the majority of its questions.
Over the weekend, the conglomerate maintained it was not going to change the schedule nor the issue price of its secondary share sale by Adani Enterprises, the group told Reuters.
The flagship company set a floor price of 3,122 rupees per share and a cap of 3,276 rupees per share for the share sale â much higher than its Friday close of 2,762.15 rupees.