Gautam Adani’s crucial $2.5 billion share sale was fully subscribed on Tuesday as investors pumped funds into his flagship firm, despite a $65 billion rout in the Indian billionaire’s stocks sparked by a short-seller’s report.

The fundraising is critical for Adani, not just because it will help cut his group’s debt, but also because it is being seen by some as a gauge of confidence at a time when the tycoon faces one of his biggest business and reputational challenges.

Hindenburg Research’s report last week alleged improper use of offshore tax havens and concerns about high debt, which Adani denied, but the subsequent market meltdown has led to a dramatic and sudden fall in his fortunes as he slipped to eighth from third in Forbes rich list rankings.

The 30% anchor portion of India’s largest ever secondary share sale attracted investors including Maybank Securities and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, as well as India’s HDFC Life Insurance and state-backed Life Insurance Corporation (LIFI.NS).

The list of investors who participated in the book building, which had gathered only 3% in bids on Monday amid concerns over the rout in Adani’s stocks, is not yet public.

By Tuesday, the overall share sale was fully subscribed as foreign institutional investors and corporate funds flooded in, although participation by retail investors and Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) employees remained low.

“The purpose of the FPO (follow-on public offering) was two fold – to raise funds to reduce the debt and to broadbase the shareholding … they haven’t been able to broadbase the shareholding,” Ambareesh Baliga, a Mumbai-based independent market analyst, said.

The offer closes days after Adani’s public face-off with Hindenburg Research, which last week flagged concerns about the use of tax havens and “substantial debt” at the group. It added that shares in seven Adani listed companies have an 85% downside due to what it called “sky-high valuations”.

That Adani group has said it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements, calling the report baseless and adding it is considering taking action against Hindenburg.

Support for Adani’s share sale came even as the flagship’s shares closed at 2,973.9 rupees, up nearly 3% but below the lower end of the sale price band of 3,112 rupees.

Adani Group’s total gross debt in the financial year ended March 31, 2022, rose 40% to 2.2 trillion rupees ($26.83 billion). Adani said on Sunday in response to Hindenburg’s allegations that over the past decade the group has “consistently de-levered”.

Adani said the Hindenburg report was a “calculated attack” on India and its institutions, while its CFO compared the market rout of its stocks to a colonial-era massacre.

Hindenburg later said Adani’s “response largely confirmed our findings and ignored our key questions.”

Asked about the Adani-Hindenburg saga, India’s chief economic adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran told reporters the “corporate sector as a whole has deleveraged and their balance sheets are healthy. So, what happens to one particular corporate group, is a matter between the market and the corporate group.”

Adani had in recent days repeatedly said investors were standing by its side and the share offering would go through. Bankers at one point had considered tweaking the pricing of the issue, or extending the sale, Reuters had reported.

Most of the demand during the public book building process came from non-institutional investors who invested more than 1 million rupees each, with bids totalling five times the shares on offer. The portion for qualified institutional buyers, which includes foreign investors, was 1.2 times subscribed.

But domestic financial institutions or banks, as well as domestic mutual funds, made no bids. And demand from retail investors and company employees remained muted, garnering bids of 12% and 55% of shares on offer.

“Investors would view the successful completion of the FPO as a welcome relief, as it implies that the company still has the support of institutional investors,” Leonard Law, Senior Credit Analyst at Lucror Analytics Singapore, said on Tuesday.

Adani’s firm held extensive discussions over the weekend and through Monday with investment bankers and institutional investors to attract subscriptions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the talks.

The names of investors is not yet available, but Abu Dhabi conglomerate International Holding Company (IHC.AD) said late on Monday that it will invest $400 million.

Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS) closed nearly 4% higher on Tuesday after losing 38% since the Hindenburg report, while Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSE.NS) climbed 2.6%.

Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS) closed down 10% at its lower price limit, while Adani Power (ADAN.NS) and Adani Wilmar (ADAW.NS) were down 5% each.

Hindenburg said in its report it had shorted U.S.-bonds and non-India traded derivatives of the Adani Group. On Tuesday, U.S. dollar-denominated bonds issued by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone continued their fall into a second week.

Related Galleries:

The United States and its allies will impose further sanctions on Myanmar on Tuesday, marking the two-year anniversary of the coup with curbs on energy officials and members of the junta, among others.

Washington will impose sanctions on the Union Election Commission, mining enterprises, energy officials and current and former military officials, according to a Treasury Department statement seen by Reuters.

It marks the first time the United States has targeted Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) officials under the current Myanmar sanctions program, a Treasury spokesperson said.

Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom also announced sanctions on Tuesday.

Myanmar’s top generals led a coup in February 2021 after five years of tense power-sharing under a quasi-civilian political system that was created by the military, which led to a decade of unprecedented reform.

The country has been in chaos since, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on opponents that saw Western sanctions re-imposed.

Tuesday’s U.S. move will target the managing director and deputy managing director of the state-owned MOGE, which is the junta’s single largest revenue generating state-owned enterprise, according to the Treasury statement.

Human rights advocates have called for sanctions on MOGE, but Washington has so far held back from designating the state-owned enterprise.

Also among those that will be designated by Washington was the Union Minister of Energy, Myo Myint Oo, who Treasury said represents Myanmar’s government in international and domestic energy sector engagements and manages the state-owned entities involved in the production and export of oil and gas.

Mining Enterprise No 1 and Mining Enterprise No 2, both state-owned enterprises, as well as the Union Election Commission, are also set to be hit with sanctions by the United States.

The military has pledged to hold an election in August this year. On Friday, the junta announced tough requirements for parties to contest the election, including a huge increase in their membership, a move that could sideline the military’s opponents and cement its grip on power.

The rules favour the Union Solidarity and Development Party, a military proxy stacked with former generals, which was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party in 2015 and 2020 elections.

The NLD in November described the election as “phoney” and said it would not acknowledge it. The election has also been dismissed as a sham by Western governments.

Washington will also target former and Myanmar military officials, the Treasury said, accusing the Air Force of continuing to launch air strikes using Russian-made aircraft against pro-democracy forces that have killed civilians.

Canada targeted six individuals and prohibited the export, sale, supply or shipment of aviation fuel in its action on Tuesday, while Australia targeted members of the junta and a military-run company.

The United Kingdom designated two companies and two individuals for helping supply Myanmar’s air force with aviation fuel used to carry out bombing campaigns against its own citizens.

“The junta must be held to account for their brutal crackdown on opposition voices, terrorising air raids and brazen human rights violations,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

Guatemala, Nicaragua and Cuba reached all-time lows on Transparency International’s corruption index released on Tuesday due to increased organized crime by public institutions, co-optation by political and economic elites and increased human rights abuses.

“Weak governments fail to stop criminal networks, social conflict, and violence, and some exacerbate threats to human rights by concentrating power in the name of tackling insecurity,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, head of Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption group.

Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The average for the Americas stands at 43.

In Latin America, Nicaragua and Venezuela are the lowest ranked as each struggles with public institutions infiltrated by criminal networks, the report notes.

The governments of Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and Peru did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the report.

Guatemala has seen state institutions co-opted by political and economic elites and organized crime, the report said.

Over the past year, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has faced a growing chorus of critics claiming he has slammed the brakes on anti-corruption efforts, as well as forced some judges and prosecutors to flee the country, the main reasons for the country’s decline in the index.

Repression of the political opposition, human rights abuses and cracking down on freedom of speech is what lowered Nicaragua’s ranking, while Cuba has a historic low due to the “ongoing repression” and the “absolute lack of any kind of freedom in the country,” one of Transparency International’s researchers told Reuters.

The report adds that the combination of corruption, authoritarianism and an economic downturn proved “especially volatile” in Brazil where ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s term was marked by dismantling anti-corruption efforts, the use of corrupt schemes to favor allies and amass support in Congress, as well as promoting disinformation.

Neighboring Uruguay scored best in the region with a ranking of 74, the same as Canada.

Transparency International pointed to years of instability in Peru with its cycle of different governments including last December’s ouster of then-President Pedro Castillo, himself a target of corruption investigations.

Weak law enforcement and high-level corruption have also allowed drug cartels to expand in the Caribbean, the report said.

“The only way forward is for leaders to prioritize decisive action against corruption to uproot its hold and enable governments to fulfill their first mandate: protecting the people,” Rubio said.

Russia claimed on Tuesday to have captured a village on the northern outskirts of the city of Bakhmut, which it is attempting to surround in a big push for what would be its biggest prize in Ukraine since last summer.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv to Moscow’s claim about the village of Blahodatne, and Reuters was not immediately able to verify the situation there. It came three days after the head of Russia’s Wagner Group said the mercenary force had seized the village in an attack Kyiv said it had repelled.

The village, which sits on one of the main roads into Bakhmut, about 5 km (3 miles) north, was captured with the help of aerial support, Moscow’s defence ministry said in a statement.

Moscow has made clear, if gradual, advances in the area in recent weeks, notably capturing the salt-mining town of Soledar to Bakhmut’s north.

Were it to force Ukraine to withdraw from the city that once held 75,000 people, it would be Moscow’s first big prize since it took the similarly-sized cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in July.

During the fighting for Bakhmut, two civilians, a boy and a 70 year-old-man, were killed in a Russian artillery attack on Tuesday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Four others were wounded in the attack, he said.

Separately, a large Russian force has launched an assault against the Ukrainian-held bastion of Vuhledar this week, further south along the same eastern front. Russian officials have claimed to have gained a foothold there, while Kyiv says it has largely repelled that attack so far.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said the Russian force in the new Vuhledar assault was at least the size of a brigade, a unit typically comprising several thousand troops.

The Russians had advanced hundreds of metres across a river toward Vuhledar and could make more localised gains there, the ministry said in an unusually detailed daily intelligence update. It said the assault on Vuhledar was unlikely to lead to a significant breakthrough, but could be intended to draw Ukrainian effort away from defending Bakhmut.

Despite weeks of intense trench warfare that both sides have compared to a meat grinder, frontlines in eastern Ukraine had largely been frozen in place since November after Kyiv recaptured swathes of territory in the second half of 2022.

But momentum has lately swung back towards Russia, making substantial gains for the first time since the middle of last year.

Military experts say Moscow appears determined to push forward in the coming months before Kyiv receives hundreds of newly pledged Western tanks and armoured vehicles for a counter-attack to recapture occupied territory this year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Russia’s assault in the east as an attempt to exact “revenge” for earlier losses.

“And I think that they will not be able to provide their society with any convincing positive result in the offensive. I am confident in our army. We will stop them all, little by little, destroy them and prepare our big counteroffensive,” he said on Monday.

Kyiv says the Russian assaults of recent weeks have come at huge cost, initially mostly relying on Wagner mercenaries, including thousands of convicts recruited from Russian prisons and sent into battle in waves with little training or equipment.

But Russia’s call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists late last year means Moscow has now been able to reconstitute regular military units exhausted or depleted earlier in the war.

Western military experts say Bakhmut is not by itself of major strategic importance. But it is is one of just a handful of substantial cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region that are still under Ukrainian control, and Moscow now says capturing the full Donbas is a main objective of the “special military operation” it ordered 11 months ago.

F-16: BIDEN SAYS NO

Since winning the Western pledge for tanks after months of lobbying, Kyiv has pressed on with further requests for arms, including calls for jet fighters such as U.S. F-16s. Neither side has been able to secure control of the skies over Ukraine.

The West has so far refused to send weapons that could be used to attack deep inside Russia, a line countries still seem unwilling to cross. U.S. President Joe Biden responded with a flat “No” when asked by reporters at the White House on Monday if Washington would send F-16s.

Still, Ukraine has held out hope. Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov was due in Paris on Tuesday to meet President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters in The Hague on Monday that “nothing is excluded” when it comes to military assistance.

Macron said any move to send jets would depend on factors including the need to avoid escalation and assurances the aircraft would not “touch Russian soil”.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also did not rule out a possible supply of F-16s to neighbouring Ukraine, in response to a question from a reporter before Biden spoke.

Morawiecki said in remarks posted on his website that any such transfer would take place “in complete coordination” with NATO. Poland has long pushed for more aggressive military support for Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said on Tuesday London did not believe its own jets would be useful.

“The UK’s … fighter jets are extremely sophisticated and take months to learn how to fly. Given that, we believe it is not practical to send those jets into Ukraine,” the spokesperson told reporters.

Related Galleries:

The United States on Tuesday added seven Iranian entities to its trade blacklist for producing drones that Russia has used to attack Ukraine, according a posting by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Nearing a year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, allies have scrambled to gather and deploy air defenses to defeat cruise missiles and Iranian-built kamikaze drones that have attacked energy infrastructure targets this winter.

Earlier this month, Canada announced it would buy a U.S.-made National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) for Ukraine. NASAMS is a short- to medium-range ground-based air defense system that protects against drone, missile, and aircraft attack. The United States has provided two NASAMS to Ukraine, with more on the way.

Other ground-based air defense systems such as Raytheon Technology Corp’s (RTX.N) Patriot have been pledged by the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands as allies hope to stave off further power disruptions.

The Iranian entities added to the blacklist are Design and Manufacturing of Aircraft Engines, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization, Oje Parvaz Mado Nafar Company, Paravar Pars Company, Qods Aviation Industry, and Shahed Aviation Industries.

The Commerce Department posting said the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) produced are being transferred to Russia for use in Ukraine, activity that is contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.

An overwhelming majority of Jewish voters in New York’s 3rd Congressional District – 94% – think their freshman Republican representative, George Santos, should resign from Congress over a web of lies about his background, according to a new poll published Tuesday.  

Jews made up 13% of the 653 registered voters in the poll conducted by Siena College for Newsday between Jan. 23 and 26 via landline and cellphone. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. 

Santos has come under fire for lying about having Jewish grandparents who fled persecution during World War II and calling himself a “proud American Jew” during the campaign. He reportedly posted offensive remarks about the Holocaust and made jokes about Jewish stereotypes before he ran for Congress.

He has rebuffed calls to resign, claiming he’s beholden to the 142,000 people who elected him.

In an interview with an NBC reporter on Saturday, Santos repeated the debunked claim that he has “Jewish ancestry” but he refused to engage with the media about the revelations that his maternal grandparents were both born in Brazil before the Nazis came to power and that his mother was a practicing Catholic. 

Only 9% of Jewish respondents said they voted for Santos in November. His Democratic rival, Robert Zimmerman, who is Jewish, received 72% of the Jewish vote.

Nonetheless, 63% who said they voted for Santos on the Republican and Conservative lines regret their choice. According to the poll, 87% of Jewish voters do not think Santos can be an effective representative for the people of the district, and 81% say it was wrong for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to have seated Santos on two lower-level House committees.

Santos gave a speech on the House floor on Friday marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that same day, a number of descendants of Holocaust victims and survivors published an open letter to McCarthy urging him to respect the memory of those that perished in the Holocaust by forcing Santos out of office. 

“To falsely claim to be a descendant of Holocaust survivors makes him both a traitor to the sacred memory of those we lost in the Holocaust and a traitor to the truth,” Linda F. Burghardt, a scholar-in-residence at the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County, New York,  and a resident of Great Neck, wrote in the letter.

Earlier this month, Jewish Republican elected officials in Nassau County called on Santos to submit his immediate resignation. 

Bruce Blakeman, Nassau County’s first Jewish executive, called Santos a “stain on the House of Representatives” who deceived a large population in his district “who identify themselves legitimately as being Jewish” with his lie about his grandparents.

The post Poll: 94% of Jews in George Santos’ district want him to resign appeared first on The Forward.

Source link

The post Russians hit residential neighborhood in Bakhmut, killing child appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.