US bribery taint melts Adani stocks

ADANI, OTHERS IN $265 MN BRIBERY CASE: KENYA CAN CELS Al RPORT, EN ERGY DEALS

- AMRITHA Pll.l.AY, SUNDAR SETHURAMAN & DEV CHATTERJEE

Dawn broke on Thursday with news coming in that United States authorities had charged industrialist Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar, and some of his associates with defrauding American investors and promising and paying bribes worth $265 million to government officials in India in return for solar energy contracts.

As the day progressed, the Adani group denied the charges and termed them baseless, but cancelled a $600 million bond issue, saw the shares of its companies plunge between 9 and 23 per cent, and lost ₹2.2 trillion in market capitalisation: The BSE Sensex ended O.54 per cent below Tuesday's close while Vedanta Resources deferred its $1.2 billion dollar bond issue.

Evening brought word that Kenyan President William Ruto had ordered the cancellation of a process to hand control of the country's main airport to the Adani group and also junked a $736million public-private partnership deal with an Adani group firm to construct power transmission lines.

Thursday's developments push the Adani group into fresh turmoil not long after it had appeared to recover from the allegations levied by short seller Hindenburg Research in January last year, which had triggered a $150 billion erosion in the value ofthe group stocks.