Adani Enterprises has denied a news report even before it has been published.
In a regulatory filing with the bourses, Adani Enterprises — the flagship company of the Adani group — accused London-based Financial Times of malicious bias in regurgitating old allegations that it had over-invoiced coal imports.
The group slammed the financial daily for continuing with its relentless campaign to “tarnish” the image of the Adani group and “advance vested interests under the guise of public interest”.
“The FT’s proposed story is based on the DRI’s general alert circular … dated 30 March 2016,” the company said, presumably inferring the storyline based on a questionnaire from its journalist Dan McCrum. DRI stands for the directorate of revenue intelligence which monitors smuggling activity and combats commercial fraud related to international trade.
McCrum had also written an article titled “Secret trail reveals hidden Adani Investors” on August 31. That story, which was based on revelations from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) — a network of investigative journalists — had claimed that two Asian businessmen, Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli from the United Arab Emirates and Chang Chung-Ling from Taiwan, had conspired to funnel funds through two Mauritius-based investment funds into the stocks of four Adani group companies.
At that time too, the Adani group had rubbished the report on the basis that a part of it relied on a case filed by the department of revenue intelligence against Adani Power for over-invoicing the import of power generation equipment in 2014.
But it is absurd for any company to deny a story even before it has been published. The filing does not say how Adani divined the ‘storyline’. No media organisation bound by journalistic ethics shares a story outline before it comes out in print or digital media.
The Adanis fear that the upcoming exposé will draw on another DRI investigation. “The issue of overvaluation in the import of coal was conclusively settled by India’s highest court of law,” the group said in its latest filing.
It could be that Adani is trying to do some ‘damage control’ after it got a whiff of the story, possibly when FT sought comments from the group before running the news report. Seeking multiple viewpoints in a story is a cornerstone of good journalism.
The Adani group could be a little jittery about any adverse media report before the Supreme Court resumes hearing in the case stemming from the damning report published by US short seller Hindenburg Research in January that triggered a catastrophic slide in the shares of the group’s listed companies that wiped out over $120 billion of market valuation at one stage. The stocks have recovered since and the Adanis do not want to see another wobble in valuations.
“It is not mere coincidence that such stories have an uncanny ability to appear just before the hearing dates of important cases in India’s courts,” the filing said.
Nate Anderson, founder of Hindenburg Research, was quick to point out on X what transpired when McCrum faced a similar attack in the past.
“Adani is attacking journalist Dan McCrum at the Financial Times (FT) over an upcoming article. The last company that tried that was Wirecard, later found to be the largest fraud in German history,” Anderson posted on X, formerly Twitter.
McCrum ran a series of articles about the multi-billion dollar fraud purportedly perpetrated by German tech giant Wirecard and wrote a book ‘Money Men’ and featured in a Netflix documentary on the Wirecard scandal.
The Adani filing also mentioned Hungarian billionaire investor George Soros, who is listed as one of the many backers of OCCRP.
“The OCCRP is funded by George Soros who has openly declared his hostility against the Adani group,” the filing said.
Trinamul Congress MP Mahua Moitra took to X to point out the fallacy of the argument.
“First they said Adani is India & any anti Adani allegations are anti India. Now they say @FT is Soros! We are all Soros agents — but for Adani even a real brother is not a related party!” she posted on X.
Moitra was referring to Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod who lives in the UAE and is supposed to be a citizen of Cyprus.
When the Hindenberg report came out, the group had vehemently denied that Vinod Adani was part of the Adani group.
But a couple of months later, Adani was forced to admit that Vinod was a part of the promoter group and a related party after another avalanche of reports showed that Vinod and his entities were behind the acquisition of ACC and Gujarat Ambuja Cement from Holcim for CHF 6.4 billion in May 2022.
“Vinod Adani is part of the ‘promoter group’ of various listed entities within the Adani group,” the group had grudgingly conceded.