The Adani Group on Monday rejected a report published by the Financial Times on the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the conglomerate, calling it a "mendacious and deliberate" attempt to damage the reputation of the Adani Group. In a letter to the publication, the conglomerate claimed that the article contained "fundamental misunderstandings" of prior Adani Group disclosures, and "resultant inaccuracies" in the story, and asked to immediately take it down from their website.

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The article titled "Indian Data Reveals Adani empire’s reliance on offshore funding" published by Financial Times on March 22, 2023 mentioned that almost half of all foreign direct investment into Gautam Adani’s conglomerate in recent years came from offshore entities linked to his family, "highlighting the role of hard-to-scrutinise money flows in financing the Indian tycoon’s business empire."

According to a Financial Times analysis of India’s FDI remittance statistics, offshore companies linked to the Adanis invested at least $2.6 billion in the group between 2017 and 2022, 45.4 percent of the more than $5.7 billion it received in total FDI over the period.

"A quarter of the FDI flows into Adani group of companies came from connected shell companies through a series of small and frequent investments. More recently the transactions have become larger and

less recurrent," the report said.

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Responding to it, Adani Group said that it was "a mendacious, deliberate effort to attempt to paint the Adani family and the Adani Group in the worst possible light."

"In doing so, it reveals a willingness to be selective in using publicly available facts, lazy in its approach to understanding disclosures to which your reporters were directed, and makes insinuations that are false and damaging," it said.

The Adani Group further said that the facts about the investments "are easily available and transparent. They are available through relevant securities regulatory filings that were made at the time and are a matter of public record."

However, it said that the article incorrectly mixed primary and secondary investments, and also ignored entirely a secondary transaction of USD 2 billion.

"We understand the competitive race to tear down Adani can be alluring. But we are fully compliant with securities laws and are not obscuring promoter ownership and financing. Through the creation of a misleading narrative, your story has created reputational impact on Adani Group companies. We ask you to take down the story immediately from your website."

"Further, because this story has driven misunderstanding in the market and with other media, and has become a political issue, we are compelled to share this information publicly at this time. That is regrettable, but could have been avoided by your reporters taking a careful and objective approach," it added.

Meanwhile, the shares of the Adani Enterprises Ltd closed 2.45 percent higher on Monday against the previous close.

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(Edited by : Pradeep John)