Bearish Adani stocks, bullish Cong

MUMBAI: Shares of the Adani Group companies lost ground on Friday, extending their losses from Wednesday’s trading session, even as the Opposition Congress demanded a probe by the SEBI and RBI into charges of alleged financial irregularities against the Group, as claimed in Hindenburg report.

While rout in Adani group shares, banks dragged Sensex down by 874 points, Nifty ended at 17,600.

Equity markets buckled under severe selling pressure to close at 3-month lows on Friday driven by an extended slump in Adani group stocks that soured overall market sentiment.

Banking stocks were the top laggards as claims of high debt of Adani firms made by Hindenburg in its report had a sentimentally negative impact on the banking space, especially PSU banks, analysts said.

Jumping into issue, Congress general secretary Communications Jairam Ramesh said the forensic analysis by the Hindenburg research into the Adani Group requires serious investigation by bodies like the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as they are responsible for ensuring stability and security of country’s financial system.

“We fully understand the close kinship between Adani Group and the current government. But it is incumbent on the Congress as a responsible opposition to urge SEBI and RBI to play their roles as stewards of the financial system and to probe these allegations in the wider public interest,” Ramesh said.

Hindenburg Research has alleged that Adani Group was “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”, a charge the conglomerate described as malicious and done with malafide intention to ruin its share-sale.

Meanwhile, Adani Enterprises’ follow-on public offering (FPO), the largest ever in the history of Indian capital markets, saw dull demand receiving bids for 4.7 lakh shares or 1% of the issue size of 4.55 crore shares on Friday, the first day of bidding.