By P.R. Venkat


Shares of companies owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani fell after index provider MSCI Inc. said it will conduct a free-float review of Adani Group securities following feedback from market participants about the eligibility of some of the conglomerate's securities.

"MSCI has determined that the characteristics of certain investors have sufficient uncertainty that they should no longer be designated as free float pursuant to our methodology," MSCI said in a statement Thursday.

Adani Enterprises Ltd. didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shares of Adani Enterprises fell as much as 20%, while those of Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. lost up to 8.9%. Adani Enterprises was recently 7.4% lower, while Adani Ports and Adani Power were off 2.9% and 5.0%, respectively.

MSCI defines the free float of a security as the proportion of shares outstanding that is considered available for purchase in public equity markets by international investors.

Adani shares have taken a beating since New York-based short seller Hindenburg Research published a report on Jan. 24 alleging that Mr. Adani and his group had manipulated stock prices, among other accusations.

Adani Group has denied the allegations.

The 60-year-old tycoon, once the world's second-richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has seen his fortunes plummet. His wealth has more than halved to $61.9 billion as of Wednesday.

In a tweet following the MSCI statement, Hindenburg founder Nate Anderson said, "We view this as validation of our findings on offshore stock parking by Adani."


Write to P.R. Venkat at venkat.pr@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-09-23 0011ET