Riding on a favourable Supreme Court proceedings in the Hindenburg case last Friday, all the Adani Group companies gained ₹1 lakh crore in market capitalisation to ₹11.3 lakh crore from ₹10.26 lakh crore on Friday after most stocks rallied between 5-20 per cent intra-day.

The Adani Group’s market capitalisation had surged by over $15 billion with group stocks rallying on short-covering and bullish sentiments. Despite the wide-spread rally, market-capitalisation of billionaire Gautam Adani-controlled companies are trading below ₹18 lakh crore registered last December before the scathing US short-seller Hindenburg report hit the market in January.

Petitioners flayed

While reserving its judgment on several petitions demanding a court-monitored probe into the allegations of US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research, the apex court came down heavily on the petitioners for relying on unsubstantiated facts for filing the public interest litigation against delay in SEBI investigation and demanded a court-monitored probe.

SEBI on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it does not need additional time to complete its investigation into the Adani-Hindenburg row, with 22 of the 24 cases related to the Hindenburg matter already resolved.

Not a statement of truth

The court said that it cannot treat Hindenburg’s report as “true state of affairs”, and that is why it had asked SEBI to probe the matter. “We do not have to treat the Hindenburg report as being a statement of truth. There is no means of testing the veracity of the Hindenburg report and hence asked SEBI to probe,” it said.

Shares of Adani Power touched an all-time high of ₹428 a piece from the previous close of ₹397. However, it closed at ₹446 on profit-booking and closed with a gain of 12 per cent.

Adani Ports and Adani Enterprises were up 5 per cent and 8 per cent to ₹838 and ₹2,424 on huge demand. Adani Total share price rallied 20 per cent to close at day’s high of ₹644 while Adani Energy Solutions and Adani Green Energy were up 19 per cent and 12 per cent at ₹868 and ₹1,052.

Ambuja Cements and ACC reported a gain of 4 per cent and 3 per cent while NDTV experienced 12 per cent surge closing at 230.

Manish Chowdhury, Head of Research, StoxBox, said investors found solace after the apex court indicated that allegations in the report cannot be treated as “credible” and raised hopes that the decision may come in favour of the Group going forward.

Though some stocks in Adani Group still look expensive from a valuation perspective, Adani Ports appears promising from a long-term perspective considering the economic-centric nature of the business, high entry barriers and long-duration concessions to the business, he said. “We still advise investors to be wary of the Group stocks as we expect heightened volatility due to news flows surrounding the Supreme Court decision,” he added.