Indian tycoon Adani’s empire sinks by $20bn after US indictment on fraud charges

NEW YORK: Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has been charged with fraud in the US, which has accused him of orchestrating a $250m bribery scheme and concealing it to raise money in the US, foreign media reported on Thursday.

The criminal charges, filed on Wednesday in New York, are the latest blow to 62-year-old Adani, one of Asia’s richest men, whose business empire extends from ports and airports to renewable energy.

In the indictment, prosecutors alleged the tycoon and other senior executives had agreed to the payments to Indian officials to win contracts for his renewable energy company expected to yield more than $2bn in profits over 20 years. The Adani Group has denied the allegations, calling them “baseless”. “All possible legal recourse will be sought,” it said in a statement.

According to Financial Times, more than $20bn in market value has been wiped off Gautam Adani’s corporate empire after US corruption charges.

Shares of Adani Enterprises, the group’s flagship firm, closed down 22 percent on Thursday. Other group firms also closed in the red. Adani Green Energy, which is the firm at the centre of the allegations, said it wouldn’t proceed with a $600m bond offering.

The conglomerate has been operating under a cloud since 2023, when US short-seller Hindenburg Research published a report accusing it of decades of “brazen” stock manipulation and accounting fraud.

The claims, which Adani denied, prompted a major market sell-off and an investigation by India’s market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

Later, Hindenburg also accused Sebi’s chief Madhabi Puri Buch of having links with offshore funds used by the Adani group -- both Ms Buch and the group have denied this.

But the US indictment is one of the biggest challenges the group has faced. Apart from Adani there are seven other defendants, including his nephew. Reports of the bribery probe into the company have been circulating for months.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi demanded in a press conference that Adani should be arrested and that Ms Buch should be removed from her position as Sebi chief. He accused Modi of protecting the businessman.

Modi and the government have not commented on the issue yet. Sambit Patra, a leader of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), dismissed the accusations against Modi and said that it was up to the Adani Group to “issue a statement and defend itself”. “The law will take its course,” he said.

Shares of the Adani Group’s listed units slumped sharply Thursday, after US prosecutors indicted billionaire founder Gautam Adani over his alleged involvement in a scheme to pay $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure lucrative energy supply contracts.

In a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange, the firm mentioned the US indictment and said: “In light of these developments, our subsidiaries have presently decided not to proceed with the proposed USD denominated bond offerings.”

Meanwhile, Kenyan President William Ruto has ordered the cancellation of a procurement process that had been expected to award control of the country’s main airport to India’s Adani Group. Ruto made the announcement in his state of the nation address.

Under the proposed deal worth nearly $2bn, the Adani Group was to add a second runway at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and upgrade the passenger terminal in exchange for a 30-year lease. Ruto also said he was cancelling a separate 30-year, $736m public-private partnership that an Adani Group firm signed with the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum last month to construct power transmission lines.