Time to 'accelerate': Adani outlines priorities after SEBI closure

New Delhi: Days after receiving a clean chit from SEBI over the Hindenburg allegations, billionaire Gautam Adani said his ports-to-energy group will now shift toward accelerating innovation, improving transparency, and building for long-term impact.

"Today, a cloud that had hung over us for more than two years has been lifted," Adani said in an internal message to staff, seen by PTI.

"SEBI's comprehensive investigation has concluded by rejecting all allegations contained in the Hindenburg report from January 2023."

The January 2023 Hindenburg report accused the group of accounting irregularities, stock price manipulation, and the use of opaque offshore entities - allegations that triggered a selloff across Adani's listed companies and erased more than USD 150 billion in market capitalisation at one point.

Adani Group repeatedly denied the allegations made by Hindenburg, which has since disbanded.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last week dismissed some of Hindenburg's claims. In two separate orders, it said there was no evidence of the conglomerate using related-party transactions to route funds into its listed units, and that the transactions, cited by Hindenburg, did not meet the definition of a related party.

Adani group chairman Gautam Adani called the allegations part of a "targeted, multidimensional assault" and credited his employees for maintaining operational momentum despite global scrutiny. "This attack was never just a market event." He credited the group's workforce for continuing to execute major infrastructure projects during the scrutiny. Ports, power plants, airports, and renewable energy projects continued to expand as the group faced reputational and legal pressure.

"While the world debated about us, our ports expanded, transmission lines stretched farther, power plants ran reliably, renewable projects continued to green the world, airports advanced, cement furnaces fired away, and logistics teams delivered flawlessly," he said. "You proved that execution under pressure is the truest test of character, and that the Adani character is simply unbreakable." He added that the company had emerged stronger and laid out future priorities, including a focus on transparency, innovation, long-term value creation, and transformation.

"Integrity and transparency must remain the foundation of everything we do - inseparable, uncompromising, and safeguarded relentlessly," he said.

Other priorities will include accelerating innovation in energy, logistics and infrastructure; building a legacy that endures for decades beyond headlines; and embracing transformation to shape the future rather than be shaped by it.

Adani group, he said, must accelerate its pace of innovation and drive bold advances in energy, logistics, and other infrastructure that push the very edges of possibility. "We must build not for today's applause but for a legacy that endures for decades. Headlines fade, but what we create must leave its mark on history." Asking employees to embrace transformation, he said, the future will march forward with or without us. "Either we shape the future into what we dream or be shaped by the future into what we fear." The tycoon struck a personal note in thanking staff for supporting him through the turmoil.

"I know the quiet anxieties your families felt, the doubts even you may have felt at times, and yet, day after day, you showed up-you fought for my beliefs," Adani said.

He pointed to the group's operational resilience, noting that "while the world debated about us, our ports expanded, transmission lines stretched farther, power plants ran reliably, renewable projects continued to green the world, airports advanced, cement furnaces fired away, and logistics teams delivered flawlessly." Adani also framed the controversy as an 'agnipariksha' (trial by fire), saying every crisis deepens foundations and strengthens resolve. He warned employees that more tests would follow, but urged them to draw confidence from the group's performance under pressure.

The Adani Group aggressively diversified over the past decade, expanding from ports and logistics into energy, data centres, airports, cement, and green hydrogen, propelling its founder chairman to the world's second richest position. This was until US short seller Hindenburg Research hit it with a damning report.

The crisis rattled global investors, prompted questions from the Supreme Court, and led to SEBI initiating multiple investigations. While Hindenburg subsequently ceased operations in January 2025 under what Adani called "mysterious circumstances", the shadow of its allegations lingered until the regulator's latest findings.

Despite facing credit downgrades and investor skepticism in early 2023, the group has since regained market value, bolstered by strategic equity investments from global firms, including GQG Partners and the Abu Dhabi-based International Holding Company. What also helped was the paring of debt and resumption of expansion in the core infrastructure business.

SEBI launched multiple probes following the report's release, including investigations into related-party transactions and offshore fund structures. The group had denied wrongdoing from the outset, calling the report a "malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless allegations".

As of Monday, shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd are up more than 80 per cent year-to-date, outperforming the Nifty 50 Index.

SEBI's orders do not clear the group of other allegations raised by Hindenburg, and Adani continues to face a regulatory overhang from an indictment by the US Department of Justice in an alleged USD 265 million bribery scheme.

"We must build not for today's applause but for a legacy that endures for decades," Adani said in his message to staff. "Let history remember the past three years as the spark that built a greater Adani." Interspersed with Hindi couplets, the message urged staff to see the past three years as "the spark that built a greater Adani".

In his closing lines, Adani urged employees to let the group's story stand for "courage, conviction, and a promise we all kept to our motherland, Bharat". He signed off with 'Satyameva Jayate, Jai Hind'.

The SEBI clean chit is expected to bolster investor sentiment toward the Adani Group, which spans ports, power, renewables, cement, airports and logistics.

Analysts say the regulator's closure of the case removes a major overhang and could help the group regain access to cheaper global financing, even as scrutiny from some international stakeholders persists.

"Let history remember the past 3 years as the spark that built a greater Adani - an Adani that stood taller in dignity with every challenge it quietly overcame.

"And let our resolve echo - echo through every barrier we dared to break, echo through every tomorrow we dared to build, echo through every dream we dared to chase, And may the name Adani forever stand for courage, conviction, and a promise we all kept to our motherland, Bharat," the billionaire added.