China’s role in Hindenburg’s report on Adani Group? Senior lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani raised questions

New Delhi: Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani has alleged that a big businessman was behind the report of short-seller Hindenburg Research. It had links to China. After this report, the shares of Adani Group companies fell. In a long post on social media X, Jethmalani claimed that American businessman Mark Kingdon had hired Hindenburg to prepare a report on the Adani Group. Mahesh Jethmalani wrote on X that this is a big disclosure in the disgusting case of short selling of Adani shares by Hindenburg. For those who want to know about Chinese spy Anla Cheng, let them know that she, along with her husband Mark Kingdon, had hired Hindenburg for a research report on Adani. Kotak’s services were taken to facilitate the trading account to sell Adani shares.

What did Mahesh Jethmalani say in the post?

The senior lawyer alleged that they earned millions of dollars from their short selling, which destroyed Adani’s market cap to a great extent. These people did not give any thought to Indian retail investors. All this was done to promote Chinese strategic interests. They tried to destroy retail investors with their nefarious intentions. Kingdon also approached Kotak’s international investment arm Kotak Mahindra Investments Limited (KMIL). After this, an offshore fund as well as offshore accounts were opened to trade in Adani shares. This led to the creation of Kotak India Opportunity Fund (KIOF).

Kotak Group’s clarification came in the Hindenburg-Adani case, know what it said

‘Chinese link in Hindenburg report’

Earlier, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had issued show cause notices to Hindenburg Research, Nathan Anderson and Mauritius-based foreign portfolio investor (FPI) Kingdon’s entities for trading violations in the shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd. The market regulator’s investigation also revealed that Kotak Mahindra and Hindenburg conspired together to take short positions in Adani shares.

Why did the senior lawyer mention the Chinese connection

The ‘smoking gun’ that Mahesh Jethmalani has mentioned in his/her post is Kingdon’s wife Anla Cheng, who is a Chinese-American. She has a large stake in the Kingdon Master Fund and lobbies for Chinese interests in the US. Jethmalani has claimed that the Adani Group is investing in many parts of the world, including investments in the Haifa port in Israel and coal projects near Jaffna in Sri Lanka. Cheng and Kingdon hatched the entire conspiracy to stop this.

Adani-Hindenburg Case: Adani suffered a loss of $150 billion, how much did Hindenburg Research earn?

Mahesh Jethmalani’s three questions

Jethmalani also raised three key questions. he/she asked who introduced Kingdon to KMIL, what due diligence did KMIL carry out regarding Kingdon and whether he/she participated in the short sale as principal. The second question was whether all the Indian people, organisations and institutions that helped Hindenburg were aware of the short-selling and whether they benefited from it. Jethmalani took a dig at the opposition, specifically mentioning politicians who have on several occasions used the Adani-Hindenburg issue to target the group and the government.

Jethmalani also asked if these people and entities were aware of the Chinese link. Hindenburg claimed that the group simply named the fund K-India Opportunities Fund and masked the name ‘Kotak’ with the acronym ‘KMIL’. Kotak Mahindra (International) Limited, a unit of Kotak Mahindra Bank, has responded that Hindenburg was never a client of the group’s K-India Opportunities Fund (KIOF) and Kotak Mahindra International Limited (KMIL).