Adani stocks fall for second straight day, bonds too hit

Mumbai: The sell-off in Adani stocks, triggered by US activist short seller Hindenburg Research's adverse report on the group, extended to the second straight day with the conglomerate's total market value eroding ₹3.22 lakh crore on Friday after shedding ₹96,000 crore on Wednesday. The Ahmedabad-based group's overseas bonds also declined on Friday mirroring the subdued sentiment among investors.

The market capitalisation of Adani Group companies fell to ₹15.01 lakh crore on Friday from ₹19.19 lakh crore on Wednesday, below Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group's value of ₹15.95 lakh crore.

While Adani Total Gas, Adani Energy, and Adani Transmission shares plunged 20%-the lowest levels of the day, Adani Ports and Adani Enterprises dropped 16% and 19%, respectively. Adani Power and Adani Wilmer shares dropped 5% each.


ACC stock declined 13% to close at ₹1,884, while Ambuja Cements shares tumbled 17% to ₹381.15 on Friday.

"The corporate houses with heavy leverage and/or expensive valuations were hit the most during this sell-off," said Nishit Master, portfolio manager, Axis Securities.

Among bonds, at least eight notes issued by Adani group companies fell from 0.3 cents to about 5 cents to a dollar on Friday, showed prices on Bloomberg. Among the biggest losers were Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, whose 2024 notes fell by 3.7 cents to a dollar, the biggest single-day drop since April 2020, according to Bloomberg data.

According to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list, Gautam Adani lost around $22.6 billion on Friday to $96.3 billion, pushing him to the seventh slot in the list of the world's richest billionaires. On November 20, 2022, he became the world's second richest person with a net worth of $156.3 billion, ahead of Louis Vuitton's owner Bernard Arnault, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.

Proxy advisory firm InGovern said on Friday the 'strategically timed' release of the Hindenburg report on the eve of the follow-on public offering (FPO) by Adani Enterprises seems to indicate that there was some objective to 'scare' investors.

"With lots of noise around Adani Group shares over the last two days, investors should stay away from them till clarity emerges on the various controversial remarks from the US-based Hindenburg Research," said Manish Chowdhury, head of research, Stoxbox.