Following the indictment of Gautam Adani, the billionaire chairman of the conglomerate, on bribery and fraud charges in New York, the dollar bond prices of Adani Group companies experienced a large decline in early Asian trade on Thursday, November 21, according to news agency reports.
According to LSEG data, debt issued by Adani Port and Special Economic Zone that matured in August 2027 fell more than five cents on the dollar. According to the article, bonds issued by Adani Electricity Mumbai, which mature in February 2030, dropped by about eight cents, and those issued by Adani Transmission similarly had declines of more than five cents, closing just above 80 cents.
These drops are the most severe since February 2023, when the Adani group’s debt levels and use of tax havens were questioned in a study by short-seller Hindenburg Research.
US authorities said Wednesday that billionaire Gautam Adani was accused of paying bribes totalling hundreds of millions of dollars and concealing the payments from investors.
“This indictment alleges schemes to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials, to lie to investors and banks to raise billions of dollars, and to obstruct justice,” news agency quoted deputy assistant attorney general Lisa Miller as saying.
For their roles in a multibillion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from US investors and international financial institutions through false and misleading statements, Gautam Adani, 62, his nephew Sagar Adani, 30, and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global Ltd, were charged with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud as well as substantive securities fraud, according to the news agency.
The SEC claimed that the bribery plan was set up to allow Adani Green and Azure Power, two renewable energy businesses, to profit from a multibillion-dollar solar energy project that the Indian government had granted.
In addition to seeking permanent injunctions, punitive penalties, and barring officers and directors, the complaint accuses them of breaking the federal securities laws’ antifraud provisions.
In a statement, the SEC claimed that Azure Power’s stock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange and that Adani Green had raised over USD 175 million from US investors during the purported fraud.
At the same time, criminal charges against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, Cabanes, and other individuals connected to Adani Green and Azure Power were unsealed by the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York.
Five additional people are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the bribery plot involving one of the biggest solar energy projects in the world, according to the federal indictment that was unsealed in a federal court in Brooklyn.
In addition to allegedly deceiving investors by making false claims regarding bribery and corruption, Gautam Adani and seven other executives are charged with paying Indian government officials to obtain lucrative contracts.
FBI assistant director James Dennehy also said that they attempted to impede investigations.
