Adani stocks crash 20% as US bribery allegations rock Indian billionaire
Shares in India’s Adani Enterprises fell by 20 per cent at the start of trading on Thursday after US prosecutors charged billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani with paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and concealing the payments from investors.
The sharp decline in the flagship company was mirrored by sell-offs and trading halts across other Adani Group firms. Adani Power dropped 11 per cent, while Adani Energy Solutions plummeted by 20 per cent.
Adani, a close ally of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and once the world’s second-richest man, is accused of paying more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials to secure lucrative solar energy supply contracts projected to generate over $2 billion in profits over two decades.
Neither Adani nor the other defendants in the case are currently in custody.
Adani Group’s renewable energy subsidiary acknowledged the charges in a brief statement and announced it had halted a planned bond sale “in light of these developments” but offered no further comment on the allegations.
According to US attorney Breon Peace, Adani and two board members are accused of orchestrating “an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars.” The trio also “lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors,” Peace stated.
The scandal adds to the conglomerate’s history of controversy. In 2023, the Adani Group lost $150 billion in market value following a report by Hindenburg Research that accused it of “brazen” corporate fraud, stock manipulation, and accounting irregularities spanning decades.
Adani denied those allegations at the time, describing the report as a “deliberate attempt” to damage his company’s reputation for the benefit of short-sellers. His net worth shrank by $60 billion in the two weeks following the report, and he is now ranked by Forbes as the world’s 25th-richest person.
Political and Financial Fallout
The recent indictment has reignited criticism of Adani’s close relationship with Prime Minister Modi. Opposition parties have long claimed their association unfairly benefited the Adani Group by granting it favourable business opportunities and shielding it from regulatory scrutiny.
Jairam Ramesh of the opposition Congress Party said the charges vindicated calls for a parliamentary inquiry into Adani. He also criticised India’s Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI) for what he termed its “abject failure” to hold the group accountable for the sources of its investments.
The conglomerate’s rapid expansion into capital-intensive industries has previously raised alarms, with Fitch subsidiary CreditSights describing it in 2022 as “deeply over-leveraged.”
Adani’s journey from a middle-class upbringing in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to founding one of India’s largest business empires has been marked by both rapid growth and recurring controversy.
