Rama Krishna Sangem
After relentless attacks from US based short seller Hindenburg reports, Indian billionnaire Gautam Adani has set out to clean up his family owned businesses. Adani plans to appoint auditors from a top global firm and hire a chief executive officer for his family offices to bring a level of disclosure often associated with listed companies, people familiar with the matter said.
The founders of the mining-to-media conglomerate are talking to two of the big six accounting firms to audit the family offices’ accounts, said people familiar with the discussions who did not want to be identified as the talks are private.
The moves aim to bring transparency in how the wealth of Asia’s second-richest person, valued at $105.4 billion, is managed and underscores the lessons from last year’s short seller attack. The first-generation entrepreneur faced intense scrutiny and criticism from Hindenburg Research LLC on multiple issues, including the opacity in how the group operates and controls its listed entities.
Hiring is underway
Hiring is underway for a team of about five people, led by a CEO and a chief investment officer, that will initially report to the Group Chief Financial Officer, Jugeshinder Singh, and eventually to the billionaire-founder, the people said. Adani family’s two wealth offices were until now run informally with the help of group firms’ CFOs.
While getting professionals to lead the wealth offices is not uncommon especially for billionaires who are still actively running their businesses, efforts to appoint a global audit firm and bolster disclosures is a rather rare initiative and in sharp contrast to most of the family offices, where discretion and secrecy is preferred.
This shows that Adani is looking for an image makeover after a tumultuous period last year. Increased transparency will burnish the conglomerate’s credentials too as it steadily increases its global footprint and woos global investors.
The recast family office management will also oversee the founders’ shareholding across the listed Adani Group firms, besides preparing financial reports for the additional disclosures the family wants to make, the people said. Though Adani initially refuted the charges of Hindenburg as malicious and motivated against him and India, he appears to have realized the need to clean up his businesses to meet the global standards, in probity and transparency.