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Adani Group units scrapped a $600 million dollar bond sale after US prosecutors charged founder Gautam Adani with participating in an alleged bribe plot. The group’s existing US-currency notes plunged in Asian trading.
The Indian media-to-mining conglomerate decided not to proceed with the offering in view of press releases from the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified.
Billionaire Adani, one of the richest men in the world, was charged with allegedly participating in a scheme that involved promising to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts. Hours before, units of the conglomerate had priced the bond offering that just shortly thereafter it scrapped.
Adani Green Energy UP dollar notes issued in March slid a record 15 cents to as low as 80 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Other securities from group companies dropped the most since a short-seller report in 2023 by Hindenburg Research to as low as 74 cents. That report last year had also sparked a more than $150 billion rout in Adani Group stocks at the time.
“While Adani has shown resilience in weathering past allegations, including those from Hindenburg, this development underscores the persistent risks associated with emerging markets, particularly around governance, transparency, and regulatory scrutiny,” said Mohit Mirpuri, a fund manager at Singapore-based SGMC Capital Pte.
Gautam Adani is widely perceived as a key ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The billionaire denies getting political favors but says his conglomerate always aligns its business strategies to the policy priorities of the government, regardless of who is in power.
The US charges are a setback for Adani’s group, which had been seeking to rebuild investor confidence after Hindenburg Research alleged stock manipulation and accounting fraud at the group last year. The group strenuously denied those allegation and its bonds had earlier rebounded from that crisis.
Prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, alleged on Wednesday that Adani and other defendants lied about the plan as they sought to raise money from US investors. The five-count indictment also accuses Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, executives at an Indian renewable-energy company, of breaking federal laws.
(Updates with further background throughout.)
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