Committed To Ensuring Market Integrity And Appropriate Structural Strength: SEBI On Adani Row

Adani Row: SEBI said it is taking all necessary surveillance measures to address any excessive volatility in individual shares.

Adani-Hindenberg Saga Latest Update: On the Adani issue, capital markets watchdog SEBI on Saturday said it is committed to ensuring market integrity and appropriate structural strength. SEBI also said it is taking all necessary surveillance measures to address any excessive volatility in individual shares.

Without naming Adani group specifically, the capital markets watchdog said in a statement that unusual price movement in the stocks of a business conglomerate has been observed in the past week. Officials confirmed that the statement has been issued in the wake of the Adani matter only.

Adani group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after US-based activist short-seller Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led group.

The Adani group has dismissed the charges as lies, saying it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements. The 10 listed Adani group firms have faced a combined erosion of over Rs 8.5 lakh crore in just six trading sessions. Adani Enterprises also had to withdraw a Rs 20,000 crore share sale.

“As part of its mandate, Sebi seeks to maintain orderly and efficient functioning of the market and has put in place a set of well-defined, publicly available surveillance measures (including the ASM framework) to address excessive volatility in specific stocks. This mechanism gets automatically triggered under certain conditions of price volatility in any stock,” the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said.

Stock exchanges BSE and NSE have put three Adani group companies — Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone and Ambuja Cements — under their short-term additional surveillance measure (ASM), which basically means that intra-day trading would require a 100 per cent upfront margin and is aimed at curbing speculation and short-selling in these stocks.

Sebi further added that in all specific entity-related matters, if any information comes to its notice, then, as per extant policies, the same is examined and after due examination, appropriate action is taken.

(With inputs from PTI)