Were LIC and SBI instructed to invest in Adani Enterprises FPO despite stock crash: Cong asks govt

PTI, Feb 18, 2023, 7:21 PM IST

Representative Image (Source: PTI)

New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday asked the government whether instructions were issued to LIC and SBI to invest in the Adani Enterprises FPO despite a drastic fall in its share price after a Hindenburg report on the conglomerate.

Posing a set of three questions to the government as part of the party’s “Hum Adani ke Hain Kaun” series, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his silence on the issue today.

He claimed that among the anchor investors in the Adani Enterprises follow-on public offering (FPO) were the Life Insurance Corporation of India which bid Rs 299 crore, State Bank of India Employees’ Pension Fund which bid Rs 99 crore, and SBI Life Insurance Company which bid Rs 125 crore.

“These publicly owned institutions participated in the FPO despite the fact that the market price had dropped far below the issue price and that both LIC and SBI already owned large chunks of Adani Group equity. Were instructions issued to LIC and SBI to deploy the savings of crores of Indians to once again bail out the Adani Group,” he asked in a statement.

Posting the questions, Ramesh tweeted, “Mahashivaratri today and along with it here is HAHK (Hum Adani ke Hain Kaun)-13. The 13th set of questions to the PM. Aaj Toh Chuppi Todiye Pradhan Mantriji (Break your silence today, Prime Minister)!”

Under the HAHK series, the opposition party has been posing questions to the government on the Adani issue.

In its latest set of questions to the prime minister, the Congress asked, “Is it true that a high-profile Union Minister with longstanding commercial links made personal calls to five-six of the most well-known businesspersons on behalf of Gautam Adani and asked them to invest their personal funds in the FPO to save Gautambhai from embarrassment? Does this not represent a conflict of interest worth investigating? Did this Union Minister act on instructions from you?”

The Congress leader also asked if the family offices that were pressured to bail out the Adani FPO given assurances that this was only to save Gautam Adani’s reputation and that the FPO would be subsequently cancelled and the money returned to the investors.

“Is it not a violation of Indian securities regulations to hide this relevant information from most investors and only to share it with a select few? Is it ethical to dupe FPO investors in this way,” he asked.

Recently, Adani Group stocks had taken a beating on the bourses after the Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share-price manipulation, against the business conglomerate.

The Gautam Adani-led group has dismissed the charges as lies, saying it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements.

The Congress has demanded a joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Adani issue. The opposition party also stalled proceedings of both Houses of Parliament during the first part of the Budget Session.