Business
Adani no longer Asia’s richest person as stock rout continues
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Shares in Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s conglomerate plunged again on Wednesday as a rout in his companies deepened to $86bn in the wake of a US short-seller report, with the billionaire also losing his title as Asia’s richest person.
Wednesday’s stock losses saw Adani slip to 15th on Forbes rich list with an estimated net worth of $75.1bn, below rival Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd who ranked ninth with a net worth of $83.7bn.
Before the critical report by US short seller Hindenburg, Adani had ranked third.
The losses mark a dramatic setback for Adani, the school-dropout-turned-billionaire whose fortunes rose rapidly in recent years in line withthe stock values of his businesses that include ports, airports, mining, cement and power. Now, the tycoon is fighting to stabilise his companies and defend his reputation.
The share slides came just a day after the Adani Group managed to muster support from investors for a $2.5bn share sale for flagship firm Adani Enterprises, in what some saw as a stamp of investor confidence at a time of crisis.
The report by Hindenburg Research last week alleged improper use by the group of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation. It also raised concerns about high debt and the valuations of seven listed Adani companies.
The group has denied the allegations, saying the short seller’s narrative of stock manipulation has “no basis” and stems from an ignorance of Indian law. It has always made the necessary regulatory disclosures, it added.
Shares in Adani Enterprises, often described as the incubator of Adani businesses, plunged 28 percent on Wednesday, bringing its losses since the Hindenburg report to more than $18bn. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone dropped 19 percent. Both stocks marked their worst day ever.
“The kind of fall that we are seeing in Adani stocks is scary,” said Avinash Gorakshakar, head of research at Mumbai-based Profitmart Securities.
Adani Power and Adani Wilmar fell 5 percent each, and Adani Total Gas slumped 10 percent, with all three falling by their daily price limits. Adani Transmission was down 3 percent and Adani Green Energy was down 5.6 percent.
Adani Total Gas, a joint venture with France’s Total, has been the biggest casualty of the short-seller report, losing about $27bn.
Dollar bonds issued by Adani entities also resumed their slide on Wednesday. The US dollar-denominated bonds of Adani Ports maturing in February 2031 led the losses, falling 3.59 cents to 67.58 cents.
Underscoring the nervousness in some quarters, Bloomberg reported that Credit Suisse had stopped accepting bonds of Adani group companies as collateral for margin loans to its private banking clients.
Deven Choksey, managing director of KR Choksey Shares and Securities, said this was a big factor in Wednesday’s share slides.
Credit Suisse had no immediate comment.
After losing $86bn in recent days, equivalent to 16 percent of India’s annual budget spend of $550bn announced on Wednesday, the seven listed Adani Group entities now have a combined market capitalisation of about $131bn.
Confidence damaged
“There was a slight bounce yesterday after the share sale went through, after seeming improbable at a point, but now the weak market sentiment has become visible again after the bombshell Hindenburg report,” said Ambareesh Baliga, a Mumbai-based independent market analyst.
“With the stocks down despite Adani’s rebuttal, it clearly shows some damage on investor sentiment. It will take a while to stabilise,” Baliga added.
Asked whether he was concerned about wider losses on India’s equity markets because of the plunge in Adani Group shares, economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth said the government “does not comment on issues related to a particular company”.
India’s benchmark Nifty index has fallen 2.7 percent since the Hindenburg report. Data also shows that foreign investors sold a net $1.5bn worth of Indian equities after the Hindenburg report – the biggest outflow over four consecutive days since September 30.
Scrutiny of the conglomerate is stepping up, with an Australian regulator saying on Wednesday it would review Hindenburg’s allegations to see if further enquiries were warranted.
India’s markets regulator, which has been looking into deals by the conglomerate, will add Hindenburg’s report to its own preliminary investigation, sources have told Reuters. The regulator has not commented on the Adani-Hindenburg saga.
Indian credit rating agency ICRA Ltd, a unit of Moody’s Investors Service, said on Wednesday it was monitoring the impact of the developments on its rated portfolio in Adani Group. It added that while the group’s large debt-funded capital spending plan was a “key challenge”, some of it was discretionary in nature and could be deferred, depending on the liquidity position.
India’s state-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) said on Monday it would seek clarifications from Adani’s management on the short-seller report. LIC owned a 4.23 percent stake in Adani Enterprises as of end-December and more than 9 percent in Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone. The insurance giant was also a key investor in Adani’s recent share sale.
Shares in cement firms ACC and Ambuja Cements, which Adani Group bought from Switzerland’s Holcim for $10.5bn last year, fell 6.2 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively.
Hindenburg said in its report it had shorted US bonds and non-India traded derivatives of the Adani Group.





Business
Pierre Poilievre is neither for nor against the Liberals' industrial strategy. Quite the opposite – The Globe and Mail
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre reads from last year’s budget as he rises during Question Period on March 29 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
You would think that a politician as hard-hitting as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would have something clear to say about the big initiatives that the federal government outlined in its budget.
But somehow the Leader of the Opposition can’t tell us whether he opposes the biggest thing in the Liberal budget.
He can’t say whether he is in favour of a massive, government-subsidized industrial strategy.
We’re not talking here about some baroque measure no one saw coming. We are talking about the largest feature in the government’s new fiscal blueprint.
In Tuesday’s budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland outlined an enormous set of industrial subsidies for green technology that reduces emissions that will total $80-billion over the next decade.
This is an expenditure for industrial subsidies on a scale never before attempted in Canada. And we knew it was coming: The Liberal government signalled it was planning to respond to the huge subsidies in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Ms. Freeland budgeted more new money for those subsidies over the next decade than for health care.
Most of that money is supposed to be spent five to 10 years from now, when there could well be another party in power, possibly under Mr. Poilievre. Companies making investment decisions this year will want to know if a potential prime minister is dead set against the whole idea. Canadians should want to know too.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Poilievre was neither for nor against. Quite the opposite.
Asked whether he is in favour of the hefty investment tax credits for things such as carbon capture and hydrogen, Mr. Poilievre said his Conservatives have been in favour of carbon capture for a long time.
So that’s a yes? Well, no, not exactly.
He said his Conservatives would “study what’s in the budget and we’re going to come up with our own election platform.” Apparently it will be a year or two before we know if Mr. Poilievre thinks that a massive program launched in the 2023 budget is a good step or a colossal waste of money.
Mr. Poilievre responded to those questions by talking about the long delays for approving projects like mines – which is a legitimate point but not an answer to the question of subsidies.
And then for a moment, he made it sound like he thinks the subsidies are an outrage. “I have no doubt that Justin Trudeau will stuff the pockets of foreign multinationals,” he said. That’s pretty biting, except for the fact that we’re not sure whether Mr. Poilievre is in favour of all that pocket-stuffing.
Certainly, no one should expect that the Conservatives would release all their policies in the platform now.
And of course there’s plenty of waffling in politics. On Wednesday, Mr. Trudeau dodged questions of whether his government will ever balance the budget, to avoid admitting it never will. Mr. Poilievre refused to say whether the Conservative government would cancel a proposed dental plan.
But in this case the government of the day is launching a major subsidy program that will cost billions of dollars a year and is supposed to be the cornerstone of a decade-long industrial strategy, and key to climate-change policy, too.
The Official Opposition can’t take a pass on that for two years and claim that its mission is holding the government to account.
It can endorse the idea, but quibble over the details. Or it can oppose the very notion of pouring megabucks into subsidies.
It is evidently an uncomfortable issue for Mr. Poilievre. He has spent a lot of his time in politics railing against corporate handouts. He couldn’t help using that language on Wednesday.
But those subsidies also include a lot of money for carbon capture and storage in the oil patch that Alberta’s United Conservative Premier Danielle Smith wants. Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford will be keen on the incentives for electricity and battery plants.
Yet there’s no way around it. This is the time when the issue is being decided, if only because the Liberals have tabled the budget with hulking piles of cash devoted to it. That will set Canada’s industrial policy on a course that is supposed to endure for a decade. An opposition leader should be able to tell us if he’s against it.
Business
As Canadians miss out on benefits, Ottawa promises automatic tax filing is on the way – BNN Bloomberg


The Canada Revenue Agency will pilot a new automatic system next year to help vulnerable Canadians who don’t file their taxes get their benefits.
This week’s federal budget says the Canada Revenue Agency will also present a plan in 2024 to expand the service, following consultations with stakeholders and community organizations.
The move toward automatic tax filing, first promised in the 2020 speech from the throne, is one of several budget measures the Liberals say are meant to help Canadians with the cost of living.
Experts and advocates have called for automatic filing, noting many vulnerable Canadians miss out on benefits to which they are entitled.
Canadians are generally not required to file tax returns every year unless they owe money, but the federal government is increasingly relying on the Canada Revenue Agency to deliver income-tested benefits to individuals.
That includes Canada Child Benefit, as well as the recent top-up to the Canada Housing Benefit and the temporary doubling of the GST tax credit.
A 2020 report co-authored by Jennifer Robson, an associate professor in political management at Carleton University, estimates 10 to 12 per cent of Canadians don’t file their taxes.
Although there were non-filers across all income groups, they were most heavily concentrated in lower income brackets.
The report estimated the value of benefits lost to working-age non-filers was $1.7 billion in 2015.
The federal budget also said the Canada Revenue Agency will expand access to a service set up in 2018 that allows some Canadians with lower or fixed incomes to auto-file simple returns over the telephone.
The budget says that two million Canadians will be eligible for that service, called “File My Return,” by 2025, which is nearly three times the number of people who can use it now.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2023.
Business
U.S. weekly jobless claims rise by 7k to 198000, gold price climbs – Kitco NEWS
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(Kitco News) The initial weekly jobless claims rose by 7,000 to 198,000 the week to Saturday, surprising the markets with a bigger-than-expected increase.
Economists’ consensus calls projected the initial claims to advance to 196,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 191,000.
The four-week moving average for new claims – often viewed as a more reliable measure of the labor market since it flattens week-to-week volatility – climbed by 2,000 to 198,250. The previous week’s four-week moving average was unrevised at 196,250, the U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday.
Continuing jobless claims, representing the number of people already receiving benefits, were at 1,689,000 during the week ending March 18, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 1,685,000. The previous week’s level was revised down by 9,000.
The four-week moving average was at 1,691,750, an increase of 10,000. And the previous week’s four-week moving average was revised down by 2,250 to 1,681,750.
Traders watch the jobless claims data very closely to gauge its impact on the Federal Reserve’s employment side of the monetary policy mandate.
Gold ticked up to daily highs and then gave up some of those gains, with June Comex gold futures last trading at $1,990.60 an ounce, up 0.31% on the day.
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