On Saturday (March 11), the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Adani Group, Jugeshinder ‘Robbie’ Singh, mocked billionaire investor Bill Ackman after the latter pleaded with the US government to bail out now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank.
Ackman is the same ‘financial expert’ who upheld the Hindenburg Research report on the Adani group, which wiped out 10 lakh crores worth of investor’s money from the Indian conglomerate in less than two weeks’ time.
He also did not shy away from casting aspersions on the integrity of the Adani group and fomenting turmoil in Indian markets. Jugeshinder ‘Robbie’ Singh ridiculed Bill Ackman for running to his ‘mommy’ to fix the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. “Kid wants ‘mamma’ to come help,” he said in a tweet (archive).
While Jugeshinder’s Twitter account is not verified on Twitter, he is followed by prominent Twitter users like ThePrint’s Shekhar Gupta and journalist Barkha Dutt amongst others.
The Background of the controversy
On Friday (March 10), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced the shutdown of the US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the seizure of its assets.
Founded in 1983, Silicon Valley Bank operated out of Santa Clara in California and provided various services such as online banking, treasury management, and foreign exchange trade.
Following the development, Bill Ackman sought a bailout package for the commercial bank from the tax-funded US government. “If private capital can’t provide a solution, a highly dilutive gov’t preferred bailout should be considered,” he had demanded.
The billionaire investor further added, “The govt could also guarantee deposits in exchange for a dilutive warrant issuance and other covenants and protections. If SVB Financial Group is indeed solvent, this would buy time to enable SVB to restore the franchise and raise new private capital.”
However, his reaction was starkly different when it came to the Adani group. In his response over the Hindenburg fiasco on January 27 this year, the billionaire investor had said, “Adani’s response to Hindenburg Research is the same as Herbalife’s response to our original 350-page presentation.”
“Herbalife remains a pyramid scheme. I found the Hindenburg report highly credible and extremely well-researched. Adani Group’s response speaks volumes. Caveat emptor,” Bill Ackman emphasised.
While he conceded that he did not undertake any ‘independent research’ and his judgment was based on the cursory reading of the Hindenburg Research report and Adani’s response, this gave an opportunity to the likes of Ravish Kumar to cast aspersions on the Indian conglomerate based on Ackman’s tweets.
The billionaire investor, in Adani’s case, did not seek a bailout package despite being aware of the short-term impact that the report of the US-based short-seller would have on the Indian economy and markets at large.
He also did not bother to keep his ‘innocent until proven guilty’ argument forward in Gautam Adani’s case, as he did in Sam Bankman Fried’s case. The sweeping statements of Bill Ackman were used by propagandists to suggest that the Indian conglomerate has been involved in wrongdoings.