Displaying items by tag: Mauritius

India: The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has obtained documents which allegedly show how two people with close ties to the owners of Adani Group invested significantly in the group. Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli and Chang Chung-Ling traded in Adani Group shares through a Mauritius-based investment fund. The OCCRP reports that Ahli and Chang might be found to have been acting on behalf of Adani promoters. If so, their shareholding would bring insider investment in Adani Group to over 75%. This would potentially indicate stock manipulation under Indian law. Ahli and Changs’ investment management company reportedly paid a company owned by Vinod Adani, the brother of Adani Group chair Gautam Adani, for investment advice.

Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli is a Dubai-based business consultant, who is listed as an officer in a British Virgin Islands-based securities investment firm linked to Adani Group. Meanwhile, China-based Chang Chung-Ling has held positions on the boards of multiple Adani Group companies.

Adani Group replied “Contrary to your claim of new evidence/proofs, these are nothing but a rehash of unsubstantiated allegations levelled in the Hindenburg report. Our response to the Hindenburg report is available on our website. Suffice it to state that there is neither any truth to nor any basis for making any of the said allegations against the Adani Group and its promoters, and we expressly reject all of them."

India: Investment research firm Hindenburg Research has accused Adani Group of conducting a 'stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme' over a period of ‘decades.’ The US-based firm alleged that listed companies belonging to Adani Group are indirectly part-owned by shell entities and funds connected to the Adani family’s private offshore trusts and companies. The listed companies have purportedly paid money into the offshore trusts and companies, which in turn funded the shell entities and funds investing and trading in Adani Group stocks. Hindenburg Research said that four Adani Group listed companies are ‘near the delisting threshold’ under Indian law requiring a minimum 25% non-promoter holding in listed companies.

Bloomberg has reported that Hindenburg Research said that its two-year investigation into Adani Group uncovered a ‘vast labyrinth of offshore shells’ managed by Adani Group chair Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod Adani. It identified 38 such shell entities based in Mauritius, and other entities based in Cyprus, Singapore, the UAE and the Caribbean. It reported that ‘many’ Vinod Adani-controlled entities show ‘no obvious signs of operations.’ Nonetheless, they have collectively ‘moved billions of dollars.’ Hindenburg Research has uncovered evidence of what it called ‘efforts that seem designed to mask the shell entities, including recurrent listings of ‘nonsensical services’ on their websites. Many of these allegedly have no named employees, and were formed on the same days as others. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) confirmed that the offshore funds in question are subject to an on-going investigation.

In a statement, Adani Group’s chief financial officer (CFO) Jugeshinder Singh said that Hindenburg Research had not made “any attempt to contact us or verify the factual matrix.” Singh described the allegations “stale, baseless and discredited.”

Hindenburg Research has taken a short position on Adani Group, meaning that it may make money should the price of shares in Adani Group drop.

Separately, Adani Group acquired a 63% stake in Ambuja Cements and a 57% stake in ACC from Switzerland-based Holcim through an offshore special purpose vehicle (SPV) in September 2022.

Hindenburg Research's report on Adani Group, entitled ‘Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History’ can be found here.

Egypt: Lafarge Egypt has appointed Jimmy Khan as its chief executive officer (CEO).

Khan has worked for Holcim, LafargeHolcim and Lafarge for 18 years. Notable positions include becoming Head of Business Processes, Internal Control and Audit - Nigeria in 2013, CEO of LafargeHolcim Mauritius and Seychelles in 2015 and Country CEO of Zambia in 2018. He is a graduate of the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech in the US.

Africa/Asia: Holcim has agreed to sell Holcim Madagascar, Holcim Reunion, Lafarge Comoros, Lafarge Mauritius and Lafarge Mayotte to Cementis Océan Indien, a newly launched subsidiary of Mauritius-based Taylor Smith Investment. The Les Echos newspaper has reported that Cementis Océan Indien's acquisition of Lafarge Seychelles is on-going.

Cementis Océan Indien chair Colin Taylor said "The companies that have been bought are all financially solid.” He added "Cementis is positioned as the regional leader in the production and distribution of cement."

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has signed a contact with Réunion-based retailer Ravate Group, under which the latter will stock its H-Iona slag cement in its shops in Réunion, Mauritius and Mayotte until 2025. The producer says that the first deliveries will follow in late 2021.

Owners Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann said “Providing professionals and the general public with the possibility of buying very low-carbon cement, and thus of helping fight global warming, is a source of great pride for Hoffmann. We are delighted to have signed this first H-Iona distribution contract with Ravate Group, an independent family-run business with which we share many values such as innovation and respecting the environment. This partnership will allow us to increase our current order book and generate deliveries of bags of cement from 2021. We intend to sign more partnership deals of this type in order to be able to supply H-IONA and its exceptional benefits, notably environmental benefits, to as many people as possible.” Ravate Group operates over 40 outlets.

Mauritius: Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG)’s subsidiary GuarantCo has filed an insolvency petition against Dalmia Bharat Cement’s subsidiary Calcom Cement India for the alleged non-payment of US$27.5m. The Financial Express has reported that GuarantCo was the guarantor for various loans which Calcom obtained from Indian banks in 2007. A Dalmia spokesperson has stated that the procedures are intended “to put pressure on Calcom Cement,” which “has not committed any default in making payments to GuarantCo.”

Mauritius: Lafarge Mauritius has launched Lakaz Mazik, a cement bag that dissolves in a concrete mixer. The bag has been developed by Sweden’s BillerudKorsnäs, according to the L’Express newspaper.

Mauritius: Dominique Billon, the general manager of Kolos, says that the local cement market has grown by 10% so far in 2018. He added that his company holds a 44% market share, according to Le Défi Plus newspaper. Local demand has risen due to infrastructure projects including the Metro Express and the Côte d'Or Smart City. Kolos operates a 60,000t cement terminal in the country. Its cement products include Kolos Plus and Kolos Classic.