What Gautam Adani is facing from Hindenburg is something Reliance Industries' founder Dhirubhai Ambani faced in 80s and he successfully thwarted the challenge, writes Hamish McDonald in his book 'Ambani and Sons'
Long before Mukesh Ambani took over RIL, in early 1982, Reliance announced a rights issue of partly convertible debentures to borrow money from investors
A cartel of bear operators, supposedly from Kolkata, started short selling shares of Reliance. The bears sold 350,000 Reliance shares, causing the price to fall quickly from Rs 131 to Rs 121
In SEBI's words, short selling is the selling of a stock that the seller does not own at the time of trade. All classes of investors, be it retail or institutional investor, are permitted to short sell
Dhirubhai Ambani reacted quickly to the short selling by rounding up "Friends of Reliance". "The more the bears sold the more NRI investors ‘based in West Asian countries’ picked up," wrote Hamish McDonald
Ever since the scathing Hindenburg report, Adani Group has called off Rs 20,000-crore FPO of Adani Enterprises, pre-paying $1.1-billion of loans on shares ahead of their maturity in 2024
Adani Group lost more than $109 billion as of February 7, 2023 in market value in two weeks since the US short-seller Hindenburg Research's report was published
Moody's rating agency has warned the share-price plunge could hit the group's ability to raise capital. Indian banks' exposure to Adani Group is 'insufficient' to pose credit risk, says Fitch