FPI count in six Adani companies on the rise since Sept 2020: Report

An analysis of quarterly foreign shareholding trends in the six Adani Group companies - Adani Enterprises, Adani Total Gas, Adani Transmission, Adani Green, Adani Ports, and Adani Power shows a rise in the numbers of FPIs from the September quarter of 2020, noted a report by market daily Economic Times (ET).

In Adani Enterprises, the number of FPIs have jumped more than threefold to 410 in March 2023 from 133 in September 2020, informed ET. Meanwhile, in Adani Total Gas, the number of overseas investors has gone up to 532 from 63. Also, The number of FPIs in Adani Transmission has shot up to 431 from 62 and in Adani Green to 581 from 94 in September 2020, it added.

As per the report, Sebi is probing allegations of breaches in overseas investor ownership and minimum public shareholding rules by the Adani Group, which was highlighted by Hindenburg Research in late January.

Sebi had started a probe into the shareholding patterns of the Ahmedabad-based conglomerate in October 2020 after its internal surveillance system threw up alerts on the concentration of certain foreign holdings in six listed Adani companies, noted ET. Since then, it has come to Sebi's notice that there is a diversification in FPI shareholding in these firms, a source told ET.

Sebi is in the process of introducing tighter disclosure requirements for FPIs to prevent the misuse of overseas investment routes and curb public shareholding norm violations, added the report.

In its public discussion paper on May 31, the regulator had said that it has observed that some FPIs have put in a "substantial portion" of their equity portfolio in a single investee company/company group.

"It has been a long-standing suspicion of Sebi that some of the public shareholders are not truly public shareholders and they could be fronts for the promoters of (Adani) companies," read the May 6 report submitted by the Supreme Court-appointed panel on the Adani Group.