By Venkatesh Raghavan
Mumbai: Adani Group’s shares today got an extended relief after yesterday’s round of rallying and recovering from its continual downward spiral. The shares further rallied today following the Supreme Court’s (SC) verdict that market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) should conduct a thorough probe into allegations of Adani Group violating market norms and stock manipulation. SEBI was asked to conduct the probe and submit the final report within two months.
Soon after the court order hit the media platforms, there were sounds of relief from the investor community in anticipation of an early recovery from the turbulent crisis plaguing the group companies’ share pricing that largely centred around an air of uncertainty.
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The allegations were precipitated after an American short-seller firm Hindenburg Research came out with an indictment on the Adani group companies in its research findings that were published on January 24, 2023.
Adani Enterprises, the group’s flagship company after suffering a steep 9.64% dip in valuation during the morning hours recovered strongly during the afternoon hours and was trading at INR 1,603.30 towards the end. Overall a five per cent rise was registered in the Adani Group shares by the end of today’s trading session.
Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani welcomed the SC’s order to conduct a SEBI probe for ascertaining violations of market norms besides share price manipulation by the conglomerate. He tweeted that “It will bring finality in a time-bound manner. Truth will prevail.”
Meanwhile, the group’s market capitalization (m-cap) has risen by INR 23,434 crores touching INR 7,79,619 crores in the closing hours of Thursday as compared to the Wednesday ending figure of INR 756185.12 crores. Market capitalization is the total value of all a company’s group shares including those held by the group as well as those outstanding. The brief downward spiral of share prices also resulted in the Group making early repayments of loans in order to avoid the possible risk entailed by the revoke of their shares pledged by market investors.
Market watchers sounded that the Adani shares are likely to bounce back and the turmoil faced by investors is a temporary phenomenon. In the absence of any evidence to support the claims in the report, and no history of any default, the Adani group is expected to tide over this temporary crisis, they opined. They, however, conceded that the report has caused massive financial damage to the group besides sullying its reputation in the Indian markets.
*Senior journalist
