Hindenburg Vs Adani: US Firm’s Serious Charge Against Sebi Chief; Congress Says End ‘Conflict Of Interest’

US short-seller Hindenburg Research – which had wiped out much of Adani Group’s net worth with its allegations of financial irregularities last year – on Saturday claimed in a blog that market regulator Sebi’s chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had stakes in “obscure offshore funds” used in the Adani scandal.

The American firm accused the market regulator of showing a “surprising lack of interest in Adani’s alleged undisclosed web of Mauritius and offshore shell entities” because of Buch’s secret financial interest in the conglomerate.

“Madhabi Buch, the current chairperson Of SEBI, and her husband had stakes in both obscure offshore funds used in the Adani money siphoning scandal,” the American short-seller said in a blog post, which is expected to rock the Indian political space.

Per Hindenburg’s 2023 allegations, obscure offshore Bermuda and Mauritius funds, allegedly controlled by Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani, inflated the Adani Group companies’ stock prices.

Citing an IIFL document, the company claimed the couple’s net worth is estimated to be $10 million and the source of the secret investment was salary.

“In brief, despite the existence of thousands of mainstream, reputable onshore Indian mutual fund products, an industry she now is responsible for regulating, documents show SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Buch and her husband had stakes in a multi-layered offshore fund structure with miniscule assets, traversing known high-risk jurisdictions, overseen by a company with reported ties to the Wirecard scandal, in the same entity run by an Adani director and significantly used by Vinod Adani in the alleged Adani cash siphoning scandal,” it alleged.

It claimed that the Supreme Court had said in its order that Sebi had “drawn a blank” in its investigations into who funded Adani’s offshore shareholders. Hindenburg claimed that the market regulator was reluctant to probe a trail of money which its chairperson might have led. “If SEBI wanted to find the offshore fund holders, perhaps the SEBI chairperson could have started by looking in the mirror. We find it unsurprising that SEBI was reluctant to follow a trail that may have led to its chairperson,” it added.

“We had previously noted Adani’s total confidence in continuing to operate without the risk of serious regulatory intervention, suggesting that this may be explained through Adani’s relationship with SEBI Chairperson, Madhabi Buch,” the firm had said in a teaser in the morning.

Meanwhile, Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch denied the allegations. “In the context of allegations made in the Hindenburg Report dated August 10, 2024, against us, we would like to state that we strongly deny the baseless allegations and insinuations made in the report. The same is devoid of any truth. Our life and finances are an open book. All disclosures as required have already been furnished to SEBI over the years,” they said.

Reacting to the explosive allegations, Congress demanded the Centre act immediately to eliminate all conflicts of interest in the regulator’s investigation of the Adani Group. “This had tied its hands to the extent that ‘the securities market regulator suspects wrongdoing, but also finds compliance with various stipulations in attendant regulations… It is this dichotomy that has led to SEBI drawing a blank worldwide’,” Jairam Ramesh said quoting the Expert Committee.

Jairam Ramesh also demanded a JPC probe. “The government must act immediately to eliminate all conflicts of interest in the SEBI investigation of Adani. The fact is that the seeming complicity of the highest officials of the land can only be resolved by setting up a JPC (joint parliamentary committee) to investigate the full scope of the Adani mega scam,” the former Union minister said in his statement.

In January last year, Hindenburg Research accused Adani Group of pulling “the largest con in corporate history” by using a web of companies in tax havens to inflate its revenue and manipulate stock prices, even as debt piled up. The conglomerate denied all allegations. However, the company suffered a massive erosion of its wealth as the group’s share prices plummeted. The conglomerate almost lost $150 billion in market value. They have now recovered a significant chunk of their lost wealth over the past few months.