Adani rout hits $65.7b as pressure piles on tycoon

India's market regulator said to be studying scathing short-seller report

The sell-off in billionaire Gautam Adani's corporate empire accelerated on Friday, erasing more than US$50 billion ($65.7 billion) of market value in less than two sessions as Asia's richest man struggles to contain the fallout from a scathing report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research.

India's market regulator has increased scrutiny of deals undertaken by the Adani Group over the past year and will study the report by Hindenburg to add to its own ongoing preliminary investigation into the group's foreign portfolio investors, according to two sources aware of the matter.

The rout is piling pressure on the Indian tycoon as it erodes his net worth and threatens to sour investor sentiment towards the US$2.5 billion share sale by his flagship company, Adani Enterprises. Losses accelerated even after Adani Group disputed Hindenburg's allegations in a Thursday call with bond holders and pledged to release a detailed rebuttal on Friday.

Adani Enterprises lost more than 19 per cent on Friday, sliding below the 3,276-rupee level at which anchor investors were allotted shares in the follow-on equity sale. Some, like Adani Green Energy and Adani Total Gas, plunged by the daily 20 per cent limit, adding to a US$12 billion sell-off in group companies on Wednesday. Volumes in these stocks were at least triple their three-month average.

Adani Wilmar, the group's joint venture with Singapore-listed Wilmar International that listed in India in 2022, fell 5 per cent.