Viceroy: Many hits, few misses

Only a fifth of the Viceroy's calls have resulted in a loss, translating to an 80% success rate

- Dipali Banka & Varun Sood

Thirty months after the shock Hindenburg report on Adani Group, New York-based short-seller Viceroy Research took aim at billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Resources Plc, calling his mining and minerals conglomerate a Ponzi scheme.

Founded in 2016 by British short-seller Fraser John Perring along with Gabriel Bernarde and Aiden Lau, Viceroy calls itself an investigative financial research group. Since its scathing report on Australian miner Syrah Resources on 23 December 2016, the Delaware-registered short-seller has issued reports on 29 additional companies, Vedanta being the latest. Incidentally, Vedanta is the first Indian company that Viceroy has flagged for alleged wrongdoing.

So, how does Viceroy, which first caught the world's attention for flagging problems at German financial payments firm Wirecard, fare?