US firm that accused Adani throng of fraud shuts down

A US-based short-seller which had published reports accusing top financial entities in India and abroad of financial wrongdoings and fraud is set to shut down.

Nate Anderson, the founder of Hindenburg Research, announced on Wednesday that he was disbanding the business almost eight years after starting it.

The firm had made headlines in India in 2023 after publishing explosive reports about billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate, sparking political rows and major losses for the business.

Mr Anderson didn’t distribute a specific rationale for his selection, but expressed a desire to spend more period with friends and household in the upcoming.

Started in 2017, Hindenburg Research shot to fame for exposing alleged financial irregularities in some large-name businesses. The firm’s reports have led to businesses, both in India and abroad, losing billions of dollars in economy worth.

“Nearly 100 individuals have been charged civilly or criminally by regulators at least in part through our work, including billionaires and oligarchs. We shook some empires that we felt needed shaking,” Mr Anderson wrote in the statement where he announced his selection.

In 2020, the business accused electric truck maker Nikola Corp of misleading investors about its technologies. In 2022, the business’s founder, Trevon Milton, was found guilty of lying to investors and convicted of fraud.

In 2023, it published a update accusing the Adani throng of decades of “brazen’ ownership manipulation and bookkeeping fraud”. Mr Adani and his business denied the allegations, calling them “malicious” and an “attack on India”.

In the days following the update, the Adani throng saw about $108bn wiped off their economy worth but firm’s economic well-being has bounced back since.

Last year, Hindenburg Research accused Madhabi Puri Buch – the chief of economy regulator stocks and bonds and swap Board of India (Sebi) – of having links with offshore funds used by the Adani throng. Both Ms Buch and the Adanis denied any wrongdoing.

Allegations by the firm have sparked furious political rows in the country, with India’s main opposition Congress event accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata event (BJP) of not taking action against the Adani throng.

Mr Adani, who is one of Asia’s richest men, is perceived as being close to Mr Modi and has long faced allegations from opposition politicians that he has benefited from his political ties, which he denies.

In his statement, Mr Anderson expressed a desire to open-source Hindenburg’s research methodology in the upcoming.

“Over the next six months or so I schedule to work on a series of materials and videos to open-source every facet of our model and how we conduct our investigations,” he wrote.

Short-sellers like Hindenburg bet against stocks of companies that they depend have been involved in fraud or other financial wrongdoings, based on their investigations. The procedure involves borrowing a ownership, immediately selling it and then repurchasing it when its worth goes down to pocket the difference.