Indian tycoon Adani’s conglomerate loses $100 billion over suspected fraud

The conglomerate of Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, 60, lost more than US$ 100 billion (R$ 507.1 billion) last week, while the shares of several of his companies fell again this Thursday (2) due to suspicions of accounting fraud.

The conglomerate has been in the spotlight since the American fund Hinderburg denounced possible accounting fraud on January 24.

The group’s flagship company, Adani Enterprises, fell 14% after losing nearly 30% on Wednesday, and its value has halved since the start of the year.

Other listed companies in Adani’s business empire halted trading after drops of up to 10% at the opening of the Mumbai Stock Exchange.

Among them is Adani Total Gas, 37.4% owned by French oil company TotalEnergies, which has lost 52% since January 1.

The panic has caused major banks such as Credit Suisse and Citigroup to stop accepting Adani bonds as collateral for loans to private customers, Bloomberg News reported.

Adani himself assured in a video statement that the “fundamentals of our company are very solid, our balance sheet is healthy and the assets are robust”.

“Once the market stabilizes, we will review our capital markets strategy,” he said, emphasizing that his debt payment record is “impeccable”.

The Adani conglomerate is involved in all types of activities, from power generation and coal mining to cement, media and food.

Its seven largest listed companies had a combined market value of about $220 billion in January.

Until last week, Adani, a college dropout, was the third richest man in the world, behind Elon Musk, owner of Twitter and Tesla, and Frenchman Bernard Arnault and his family. But on Thursday it dropped to 16th on the Forbes list.