By Aditi Shah, Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -A U.S. bribery indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is linked to one contract of Adani Green Energy that makes up some 10% of its business, and no other firms in the conglomerate are accused of wrongdoing, the group’s CFO said on Saturday.
On Wednesday, Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest men, and seven others were indicted for fraud by U.S. prosecutors over their alleged roles in a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials to secure power-supply deals.
Adani has denied all allegations calling them “baseless”.
Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh sought to defend the allegations on Saturday saying none of Adani’s 11 public companies “are subject to indictment” or “are accused of any wrongdoing in the said legal filing”.
The allegations in the U.S. indictment relates to “one contract of Adani Green, which is roughly 10% of overall business of Adani Green”, Singh said on X.
The U.S. prosecutor charges are the biggest setback for India’s $143 billion Adani Group, which was last year hit by Hindenburg Research’s allegations of improper use of offshore tax havens, claims the company denied.
The U.S. indictment has already had a significant impact on the business.
The group entity’s shares have plummeted, some global banks are considering temporarily halting fresh credit to Adani and Kenya has cancelled two deals with Adani worth over $2.5 billion.
Adani, which has several other global projects, is also charged with misleading U.S. investors about Adani Green’s compliance with antibribery principles and laws.
Singh said on Saturday, they became aware of the “specificity” of the U.S. charges only two days ago.
“We were aware that something is afoot,” he said, adding the company disclosed as much to investors in its $750 million 2024 bond offering, about $175 million of which was raised from financial institutions in the United States.
The U.S indictment, however, says the bond offering “contained false and misleading assurance about, among other things, the Indian Energy Company’s (Adani Green’s) ‘corporate governance’ and touted ‘maintaining transparency and compliance in every aspect’.”
The charges also put the spotlight on Sagar Adani, a director at Adani Green and millennial scion of the company who kept track of hundreds of millions of dollars of alleged bribes to Indian officials on his mobile phone.
Singh said the group would make a more detailed comment once it has legal approval as the matter is before the courts.
(Reporting by Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra; Editing by William Mallard, Christopher Cushing and Sam Holmes)
