Adani denies report bankers mulling delay on its $2.5 bln flagship share sale

Adani Enterprises Ltd. denied reports it was mulling delaying or cutting the price of its $2.5 billion share sale after the conglomerate’s shares plunged on a US short seller’s report.

Earlier Saturday, Reuters reported that bankers involved in the sale were considering delays or price cuts. The bankers were also considering extending the Tuesday closing date for the subscription of the issue by four days, said the report, citing three unnamed people familiar with the deal.

“There is no change in either the schedule or the issue price,” the Adani group said in a statement sent over text message. “All our stakeholders including bankers and investors have full faith in the FPO (Follow on Public Offer). We are extremely confident about the success of the FPO.”

Hindenburg Research released its report just days before Adani Enterprises launched India’s biggest ever primary follow-on public offering that’s seeking to fund capital expenditures and to pay down the debt of its various units.

Hindenburg alleged that its two-year investigation found the Adani Group “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation” and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades and called out the conglomerate’s “substantial debt.”

The Adani Group has said it’s exploring legal action against the research firm, calling Hindenburg’s report “maliciously mischievous,” “bogus” and “unresearched.”

The group lost more than $50 billion in market value in two sessions, costing Adani himself in excess of $20 billion, or about one-fifth of his total fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.