Nate Anderson’s Hindenburg Research has unveiled another target: Freedom Holding Corp., a Kazakh retail brokerage firm that the short seller is accusing of fraud.
(Bloomberg) — Nate Anderson’s Hindenburg Research has unveiled another target: Freedom Holding Corp., a Kazakh retail brokerage firm that the short seller is accusing of fraud.
In a report released Tuesday, Hindenburg wrote that a year-long investigation into the company has revealed “a laundry list of red flags” including evidence that Freedom “brazenly” skirts sanctions, appears to have “fake” revenue, commingles customer funds and then uses the money to make leveraged and illiquid bets. The report also accuses Freedom of market manipulation in its investments and publicly-traded shares.
“The publication is speculation and a set of unsubstantiated facts,” a spokesperson for Freedom said in a statement. The company said its annual report is audited by Deloitte, and all related party transactions are analyzed and disclosed.
Hindenburg’s investigation into Freedom included a “review of extensive international corporate and regulatory records, interviews with former employees and industry analysis,” the report said.
Read more: Short Seller Hindenburg Nabs Tiny Gains Off $173 Billion Carnage
Shares of Freedom fell 2.83% Tuesday morning as of 11:16 a.m. in New York.
Freedom was founded in 2008 in Moscow and later moved to Kazakhstan. It went public on the Nasdaq in 2019, and the stock has soared more than 422% since then.
(Updates with comment from Freedom Holding in third paragraph and share price in the sixth paragraph.)
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