The US firm accused of Gautam Adani’s fraud has been shut down

A US short seller who published reports accusing major Indian and foreign financial entities of wrongdoing and fraud is to be shut down.

Nate Anderson, the founder of Hindenburg Research, announced on Wednesday that the company was disbanding nearly eight years after it was founded.

The company made headlines in India in 2023 after the explosives reports were published About billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate, creating political strife and huge losses for the company.

Mr. Anderson did not share a specific reason for the decision, but expressed a desire to spend more time with friends and family in the future.

Started in 2017, Hindenburg Research gained notoriety for exposing alleged financial irregularities in some high-profile businesses. The company reports that businesses, both in India and abroad, lose billions of dollars in market value.

“Nearly 100 people have been civilly or criminally charged by regulators, at least in part through our work, including billionaires and oligarchs. We thought some empires needed to be shaken,” Mr. Anderson wrote. statement where he announced his decision.

In 2020, the company accused electric truck maker Nikola Corp of misleading investors about its technologies. In 2022, the company’s founder, Trevon Milton, was convicted of lying to investors and fraud.

In 2023, it published a report accusing the Adani group of decades of brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud. Mr Adani and his company denied the allegations, calling them “malicious” and an “attack on India”.

In the days following the report, the Adani team About $108 billion was wiped off their market value but the company’s financial health has since recovered.

Last year, Hindenburg Research accused Madhabi Puri Buch – head of markets regulator India’s Securities and Exchange Board (Sebi). Being linked to the offshore funds used by the Adani group. Both Ms Buch and Adanis denied any wrongdoing.

The company’s allegations have sparked fierce political clashes in the country, with India’s main opposition Congress party accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of failing to take action against the Adani group.

Mr Adani, who is one of Asia’s richest men, is perceived to be close to Mr Modi and has long faced accusations from opposition politicians that he benefited from his political connections, which he denies.

In his statement, Mr. Anderson expressed his desire to open source Hindenburg’s research methodology in the future.

“Over the next six months or so I plan to work on a series of materials and videos to open source all aspects of our model and how we conduct our research,” he wrote.

Short sellers like Hindenburg bet against stocks of companies that have been involved in fraud or other financial wrongdoing, based on their own research. The process involves borrowing a stock, selling it immediately, and then pocketing the difference when its value drops.