Will meet Adani Group soon to seek clarification on crisis: LIC Chairman

LIC’s investment in Adani group firm stocks has come under criticism by the Opposition parties as well as investors after U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations

The LIC management will soon meet the top management of the crisis-ridden Adani Group and seek clarification on the crisis being faced by the diversified conglomerate, chairman M.R. Kumar said here on Thursday.

LIC's investment into Adani group firms' stock has come under criticism by the opposition parties as well as investors after U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations against the Gautam Adani-led group, saying its companies manage and manipulate share prices, run offshore shell companies for round-tripping and lacking in corporate governance practices.

"Though our investor team has already sought clarifications from the Adanis, our top management could not contact them yet as we have been busy preparing the results. We are soon going to call them to meet us and explain. We want to understand what is happening in the market and in the group," the chairman told reporters at the earnings conference on Thursday.

"We'll be calling them in sometime soon to know how are they managing the whole crisis," Mr. Kumar added.

Mr. Kumar, however, refused to give a timeline of the meeting between LIC and Adani group officials.

LIC, which is the nation's largest institutional investor, is the second largest shareholder in most of the listed Adani group companies, with a cumulative investment of ₹36,474.78 crore as of January 27, which in percentage terms is 4.23% of the total public holding in those companies. But for LIC's ₹44.76 lakh crore investment asset under management, this is only 0.97%.

As of January 27, this investment was valued at over ₹56,000 crore, LIC had said on January 30, but since then these shares have further lost—cumulatively about $100 billion or about 60 per cent of their January 24 market value.