Indian billionaire Gautam Adani saw more than $20bn (£16bn) of his fortune wiped out on Friday, as investors shelled out his companies for a second day over claims he was defrauded by a US investment firm. ran away from
The Adani Group has dismissed the report as malicious, but the response has failed to quell the uproar.
India’s main opposition party has demanded an investigation.
The firm’s publicly listed companies have lost about $50 billion in market value.
Shares of the firm’s flagship Adani Enterprises fell nearly 20 percent on Friday, while some of the group’s other publicly listed firms also fell, prompting a trading halt in Mumbai.
According to the publication, Mr Adani has risen from the world’s third-richest person to seventh on the Forbes rich list, with a net worth of more than $96bn.
The findings come days after Hindenburg Research, a firm that specializes in “short selling,” or betting against a company’s share price that it will fall, published a report that The Adani Group was accused of indulging in “shamelessness” for decades. Stock manipulation and accounting fraud.
His report came ahead of a planned stake sale for Adani Enterprises, which is now seeing little demand.
Mr. Adani is a self-made tycoon who made his fortune with investments in ports, airports, renewable energy and other industries. His wealth has grown over the past three years, as the value of shares in his firms has skyrocketed.
His firm said it was considering legal action against Hindenburg.
An ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Adani has long faced claims from opposition politicians that he has benefited from his political connections, which he denies.
Many Indian banks and state-owned insurance companies have invested or lent billions of dollars in companies linked to the Adani group.
Some of India’s leading public sector banks said they were not concerned about the risks posed by the firm’s exposure.
But the broader stock market has been hit by the episode, which helped send India’s benchmark Nifty 50 stock index down more than 1 percent on Friday.
