By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Adani Enterprises Ltd led the gains among shares of Adani Group companies on Tuesday, extending a rally after a Supreme Court panel said on Friday it was not “possible to conclude regulatory failure on allegation of price manipulation”.
The rally has led one of the group companies, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, to briefly recoup all its market capitalization losses since a damaging report by the U.S. short seller Hindenburg Research on Jan. 24.
“Fundamentals of the Adani group of companies were never in question. Those were allegations which had to be proved or otherwise,” Deven Choksey, managing director at KRChoksey Holdings Pvt Ltd, said adding the regulator’s report in August will be closely watched.
The group’s listed companies lost nearly $147 billion in market value earlier this year after Hindenburg raised several questions on governance at the conglomerate. The group has denied any wrongdoing.
Following the report, India’s top court had asked market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to probe into the allegations and submit its finding to a six-member expert panel.
The panel reviewed the explanations given by the regulator that there was no evident pattern of manipulative contribution to price rise.
In the probe on foreign ownership of group stocks, the panel, citing the SEBI report, said the ultimate chain of ownership for some 13 overseas entities is unclear.
Separately, the court on Wednesday granted the regulator time until Aug. 14 to complete its probe into the violations of securities laws and regulatory disclosures.
“The high integrity of the members of the panel must have given confidence to investors to buy the beaten down (Adani) stocks,” said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
