Hindenburg points to Sebi chief's silence on charges

MUMBAI: Hindenburg Research on Wednesday pointed out that Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch has maintained "complete silence" for weeks despite several entities making fresh charges.

"New allegations have emerged that the private consulting entity, 99% owned by Sebi chair Madhabi Puri Buch, accepted payments from multiple listed companies regulated by Sebi during her time as Sebi whole-time member," Hindenburg posted on X. "These allegations apply to Buch's Indian consulting entity with no details thus far on Buch's Singapore-based consulting entity. Buch has maintained her complete silence for weeks on all of the emerging issues," it added.

Buch and her husband Dhaval had initially commented twice over two days after Hindenburg's post on Aug 11. Since then, Congress and Zee group chairman Subhash Chandra have levelled charges against them but they have not issued any statement.

The US-based short-seller posted about the Sebi chief exactly a month after it had alleged that she and her husband had conflict of interest issues while investigating wrongdoings by the Adani Group, since they had investments in the same foreign funds that the Adani Group had used to allegedly manipulate stock prices. It had also alleged Buch of using a consultancy firm for consulting for monetary gains despite being a top Sebi official. The Sebi chief, her husband and the Adani Group have all denied any wrongdoings.

Hindenburg's comments on Wednesday came on the back of Congress's allegations on Tuesday that she was paid by M&M, ICICI, Pidilite Industries, Dr Reddy's Labs and two other companies for consultancy through the couple's privately held firm Agora Advisory. M&M, Pidilite and Dr Reddy's have all clarified on the allegations. Sebi or its chief have not commented on these issues.