#199 A New Deal?

<p>India Policy Watch: Our Week With Adani</p><p><em>Insights on current policy issues in India</em></p><p><em>- RSJ</em></p><p>That was an eventful week in India. In the last edition I had written these lines on the ongoing Adani saga that have now come back to bite me:</p><p>“The FPO might struggle a bit to sail through. But that amount is a chump change for the group. A week or so of volatility, some questions from regulators, a few lawsuits, some strategically timed PR events and the group will be done with this kerfuffle by February. This is nothing more than a minor speed bump in its fortunes.”</p><p>Ooh. It didn’t turn out to be a minor kerfuffle. After the Adani Group came out with their 400+ page response to the Hindenburg report who then retorted with their characteristic bite, we witnessed a free fall in Adani stocks in the first few days of the week. The FPO barely saw any retail participation. A few anchor investors including an Abu Dhabi sovereign fund participated. And then at the eleventh hour we had family offices of prominent Indian industrial houses and few domestic institutional investors subscribe to it and the FPO just about sailed through. Social media was abuzz with either ‘see, this is the spirit of new India’ or ‘upar se call aaya hoga’ (they must have got a call from the top) kind of messages. But even this news didn’t mean much. The free fall continued that day. Eventually, the Group canceled the FPO and positioned itself as a martyr to the cause of investors who have stood by them over the years. Well, you live long and you get to see everything. There was further negative news for the group as the Dow Jones decided to remove Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the group, from their sustainability index. A few global banks reported they wouldn’t accept Adani bonds as collaterals from their clients for margin trading. Only late on Friday, was there some good news coming in from the Group. They confirmed they kept their bond payout commitments and that all interest payments have