The co-owners of the Indian Adani Group funneled money through offshore companies and elevated the younger Gautam to 3rd place in the global Forbes ranking.
Rich billionaires adani. In January, the American investment research company Hindenburg Research released a 106-page report on the Adani Group conglomerate, owned by one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, Gautam adanAnd.
The older brother of the Indian billionaire Vinod is mentioned 151 times in the investigation adanand serves as the primary link in the global network of offshore companies associated with the Adani Group. What is known about Vinod adanand what is his role in the conglomerate – in the material Forbes USA In January, US trading firm Hindenburg Research, which is short, published an extensive report accusing the Adani Group of financial fraud and securities manipulation. Name Gautama adanand, a 60-year-old Indian billionaire and conglomerate president, is mentioned 54 times in the report. The company dismisses all the allegations as “unfounded.” Vinod adanand, the less well-known older brother of the president of the Adani Group, is mentioned 151 times, the most.
Vinod adanAnd
According to a report by Hindenburg Research, Vinod “oversees a vast network of offshore shell companies” that “collectively transfer billions of dollars to public and private enterprises. adanand in India, often avoiding mandatory disclosure of the nature of transactions involving related parties.” This, in turn, enabled the Adani Group to evade Indian laws that require third parties to own at least 25% of the authorized capital in listed companies. The Adani Group denies any problematic connections with the brother of the corporation's president. “Vinod adanand does not hold any management positions in any of the listed organizations of the Adani Group or in subsidiaries and is not involved in their operations,” the company countered in its 413-page response to representatives of Hindenburg Research, published on January 29, 2023. The conglomerate also added that the Adani Group has “appropriately identified and disclosed” all transactions involving affiliates.
However, Forbes uncovered previously undisclosed transactions carried out through offshore funds associated with Vinod. adanand and, seemingly, created specifically for the needs of the Adani Group. Operations on these transactions once again confirm Hindenburg Research’s statements about hidden mechanisms and discrepancies in the conglomerate’s accounting department.
Asked for comment by neither Adani Group nor Vinod adanand did not respond. The latter’s email address, connected to multiple properties in Dubai, is located in the Adani Global domain zone.
Some of Vinod’s interactions with the Adani Group are easily seen. Last summer, one of Vinod’s ventures, Endeavor Trade and Investment, facilitated Adani Group’s $10.5 billion stake in Indian cement producers Ambuja Cements and ACC Limited from Switzerland’s Holcim, Ambuja Cements revealed in a public filing. Due to the acquired securities, Adani Group has become the second largest cement manufacturer in India.
Other activities are less clear. For example, Pinnacle Trade and Investment, a Singaporean company indirectly owned by Vinod, made a loan agreement with the state-owned Russian bank VTB (it was sanctioned by the US last year) in 2020. By April 2021, Pinnacle Trade and Investment had taken out a $263 million loan and issued a $258 loan to an unnamed affiliate. A few months later, the company appointed two investment funds, Afro Asia Trade and Investments and Worldwide Emerging Market Holding Ltd, as guarantors for the loan, according to Singapore documents. Vinod appears to be the owner of the latter: Indian stock filings for June 2020 and August 2022 indicate that he is the ultimate beneficial owner of Acropolis Trade and Investments Ltd in Mauritius, which in turn holds 100% of the capital of Worldwide Emerging Market Holding Ltd.
Both Afro Asia Trade and Investments and Worldwide Emerging Market Holding Ltd. are major shareholders of the Adani Group. As of the close of trading on Feb. 16, these funds held $4 billion worth of shares in Adani Enterprises, Adani Transmission, Adani Ports and Adani Power – all firms recognize the funds as “auxiliary” entities.
According to Internet investment counter Trendlyne, no other securities are held by Afro Asia Trade and Investments and Worldwide Emerging Market Holding Ltd. No. This means that the Pinnacle Trade and Investment loan is essentially collateralized by the value of Adani Group shares. The pledge amount of the shares of four companies adanand in which the funds are invested, none of the funds in the Indian exchange documents does not specify.
By pledging investment funds rather than Adani Group shares as collateral, Pinnacle Trade and Investment may have absolved itself of the obligation to disclose equity capital raised, the Indian stock expert adds. When asked by Forbes to comment on the material, neither Pinnacle Trade and Investment, nor Afro Asia Trade and Investments, nor Worldwide Emerging Market Holding Ltd. didn’t answer.
While the public image of the empire adanand is Gautam, Vinod prefers to maintain a low profile. Vinod has a Cypriot passport, lives in Singapore, and goes by various names, including introducing himself as Vinod Shantilal Shah. His date of birth is not known.
The only clear aspect of Vinod’s life story is his status as a billionaire. According to Forbes, he is valued at least $1.3 billion, based on his holdings in Worldwide Emerging Market Holding Ltd. and Endeavor Trade and Investment, which has stakes in family-owned cement companies Ambuja Cements and ACC Limited (excluding equity loans in the latter two). When it was revealed that several businesses previously assumed to be owned by Gautam were actually Vinod's, Forbes reduced Gautam's estimated net worth. adanand up to $50.7 billion.
Bloomberg experts ruled out adanand one of the top ten billionaires globally. On February 1, Bloomberg announced that Mukesh Ambani had surpassed his competition in the race for the title of Asia’s richest individual. According to new data from Bloomberg, the state adanand is now estimated at $72 billion, and Ambani at $81 billion. Based on Bloomberg estimates, in January adanand lost $36 billion – more than any other billionaire.
The shares of companies within the Adani Group conglomerate plummeted significantly following five days of sales triggered by the release of a report by the American company Hindenburg Research. According to Reuters estimates, the capitalization of the holding companies decreased by a total of $84 billion. Before the release of the Hindenburg Research report, Gautam adanand ranked third in Forbes' list of the wealthiest individuals globally.
However, it is extremely difficult to clearly distinguish Vinod’s personal wealth from Gautam’s finances, and the older brother may be significantly wealthier. Vinod also owns 10 properties in Dubai, according to real estate data from the Washington DC-based nonprofit Center for Advanced Defense Studies. He also owns an approximately $4 million apartment in Singapore (registered in his name in the Pinnacle Trade and Investment records). Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Mauritius, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates also house his properties.
Vinod has resided overseas for at least 30 years. According to a paid article in the Indian newspaper The Economic Times, he attained a master’s degree in engineering from the United States and subsequently launched a textile business in Mumbai in 1976. In the 1980s, Vinod bought a small plastic packaging factory for $1,000 using his personal savings and a bank loan, and brought in his younger brother Gautam to manage it. “We started almost from scratch,” Gautam told Forbes in 2009.
By 1989, Vinod had grown the company's business into trading industrial goods, established a new office in Singapore, and later moved there. Then in 1994, he moved to Dubai to trade in sugar, oil, and metals. The business was already operating in Dubai, Singapore, and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Then he started to create a network of offshore businesses. According to the Panama Papers leak from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), in January 1994, Vinod founded a company in the Bahamas. Two months later, he requested to change his name on corporate documents from Vinod Shantilal. adanand Vinod Shantilal Shah.
While Vinod was actively growing the business in Dubai, Gautam started his own career. In 1988, he established an enterprise, later named the Adani Group, and in 1994, he took it to the stock market. Throughout these years, Vinod has been closely involved in his brother's affairs. The Hindenburg Research report mentions that he held various positions in Adani Group companies until at least 2011. Additionally, Vinod's 44-year-old son, Pranav, is the managing director at Adani Enterprises to this day.
In 2014, a scandal arose regarding the alleged overbilling of the Adani Group for equipment for a power plant, amounting to about $800 million. At that time, the General Revenue Office of India accused Vinod of being involved in a planned conspiracy with employees of the Adani Group for the withdrawal of foreign currency abroad. Initially, the case was dismissed, but then an appeal was filed, and the claim is still pending consideration in the customs authorities of the country. The Adani Group denies any wrongdoing.
By conducting other transactions since 2012, a Cypriot company owned by Vinod adanand known as Vakoder Investments, received $232 million in loans from a businessman and another offshore firm in Dubai – this can be deduced from corporate documents in Cyprus. Vakoder Investments then used $220 million to purchase convertible bonds from Adani Estates and Adani Land Developers, two subsidiaries of Adani Infrastructure and Developers. Later, the term on these bonds was extended until 2024, indicating that Vinod likely still holds these securities.
Until 2012, Adani Infrastructure and Developers was a subsidiary of the publicly traded Adani Enterprises. However, according to Adani Enterprises’ 2013 financial report, around the time of those transactions in June 2012, Adani Enterprises apparently sold Adani Infrastructure and Developers for $81.5 million. Four years later, the company reappeared in the annual reports of Adani Enterprises, this time as an 'affiliated enterprise'.
Despite the proposed sale in 2012, Forbes found that by 2017 the family adanand still controlled Adani Infrastructure and Developers through another company called Adani Properties and is owned by three shareholders: a family trust adanand the son of Gautam, Karan adanand, and a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises called Adani Commodities.
The most likely explanation for such operations is family politics. “Sometimes you want to give one family member the management of a certain division of the company,” Hanna explains, and clarifies that in a family business in India, such complex arrangements are common.
Even though Hindenburg Research names Vinod as the central figure in the billion-dollar scam, Vinod himself would certainly take offense at such a title. In 2016, along with one of his consultants, he wrote in a sponsored editorial: “In an age of lies and corruption, it is rare to find a person who sticks to his word and values loyalty and loyalty to his principles over greed and his own whims. Vinod Shantilal adanand – precisely from those people who honor the heritage of the family and promote these values themselves.
