‘Largest con in corporate history’: Adani loses billions after short-seller report

“These are renowned short sellers. Their track record has been strong, with recent allegations against Nikola leading to a 40 per cent drop in share prices,” said Nitin Chanduka, a Singapore-based analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

Anderson’s firm follows the standard procedure for a so-called activist short: After researching a potential target, Hindenburg places a bet that the stock will decline, then trumpets its research publicly, using social media to get the message out. Hindenburg’s Twitter account has more than 259,000 followers, while Anderson’s personal handle has another 26,500.

Activist shorts hold themselves out as watchdogs who protect investors from accounting and management misdeeds, while the companies they target typically accuse them of market manipulation.

Regulators often have pushed back against short sellers, and the US Justice Department in 2021 collected information on dozens of investment firms and researchers as part of a sweeping hunt for potential trading abuses by shorts, according to people with knowledge of the matter. No charges have been announced from the investigation.

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Hindenburg wasn’t immediately available to comment on its track record. Adani Group’s chief financial officer said the research was a “malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.“

Bloomberg

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