Adani Rout Continues Despite Key Investor Support

(Bloomberg) — Adani Group’s stock market slump entered its fourth session with losses widening to $74 billion, as a short seller’s fraud allegations continued to haunt the Indian conglomerate despite a show of support from a key investor.

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Adani Total Gas Ltd. led the losses by dropping the 10% daily limit, with Adani Green Energy Ltd. down by more than 7% in early Mumbai trading. The flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd., whose $2.5 billion follow-on share sale is scheduled to close Tuesday, continued to defy the broader trend by adding another 2% after Monday’s 4.8% gain.

The extended weakness shows that an Abu Dhabi-based investor’s decision to subscribe to Adani Enterprises’ share offer is far from enough to restore confidence following Hindenburg Research’s attack against billionaire Gautam Adani’s business empire. The focus will now be squarely on the final outcome of the flagship firm’s fundraising exercise, a fresh barometer of investor mood about the ports-to-power conglomerate.

In a vote of confidence, Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Co. said it will invest about $400 million in Adani Enterprises’ follow-on share sale. The funding from IHC, which is controlled by a key member of the emirate’s royal family, will represent about 16% of the offering and follows an almost $2 billion investment in Adani’s companies last year.

IHC’s investment comes as Adani seeks to rebuild trust in his business after US-based Hindenburg Research accused the conglomerate of market manipulation, accounting fraud and operating a web of controlled offshore shell entities in tax havens. Adani Group issued a 413-page rebuttal on Sunday, which the short seller later said ignored all its key allegations and was “obfuscated by nationalism.”

The slump since last week has pushed Adani Enterprises’ shares below the floor price for its stock offering, which is expected to assist the group in managing debt and mark the tycoon’s ascension on the global stage. Overall subscription for the offer, India’s largest follow-on equity sale, stood at just 3% as of end Monday.

A set of the group’s dollar bonds rebounded Tuesday after some dropped to record lows in the previous session.

(Corrects the chart’s market value to billions of dollars.)