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A nephew of Indian infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani has denied violating laws against insider trading, saying he is seeking to settle allegations made by the country’s capital markets regulator.
News of the accusations against Pranav Adani, who sits as a director on multiple companies in the sprawling Adani Group, is likely to add to scrutiny of the conglomerate’s controlling family after its billionaire founder was criminally charged in the US last year.
The case relates to the acquisition of SB Energy, a solar and wind power producer then backed by Japanese tech group SoftBank and Indian telecoms billionaire Sunil Mittal, by Adani Group’s renewable energy arm in 2021, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Reuters news agency reported earlier on Friday that the Securities and Exchange Board of India had last year sent a notice to Pranav Adani alleging he shared information about the deal, prior to its public announcement. The Mumbai-based regulator did not respond to a request for comment.
Pranav Adani said in a statement that he had filed a settlement application “to put an end to the matter, without admission or denial of the allegations”.
“I categorically state that I have not violated any securities laws including the insider trading regulations,” he added. “The regulations relating to insider trading have been complied with, by me in law and spirit.”
The SB Energy deal had a $3.5bn enterprise valuation and was labelled India’s largest ever green energy acquisition.
The accusations against one of the Adani family’s inner circle surfaced just as the conglomerate was regrouping after US authorities late last year charged its chair Gautam Adani and seven others, including another nephew, Sagar Adani, over an alleged renewable energy bribery scheme.
Adani Group has dismissed the US charges as “baseless”.
The allegations against Pranav Adani cast a pall over the commissioning of an Adani deepwater port in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Friday, an event presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi has been criticised by Indian opposition parties for his perceived closeness to Gautam Adani. Both the prime minister and tycoon have denied any undue favouritism.
The conglomerate has been exploring a revival of plans to invest billions of dollars into American projects following Donald Trump’s re-election, the Financial Times has reported.
It also attracted funding from the likes of BlackRock and a half-dozen US and European investors in a $750mn private placement bond issue last month.
