After short-seller Hindenburg Research accused SEBI chair Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch for investing in Adani-linked obscure offshore funds, the couple has issued a detailed 15-point clarification addressing the allegations on Sunday.
In their statement, Madhabi and Dhaval Buch denied the claims made by Hindenburg Research. “There are certain allegations made against SEBI which would be addressed by the institution independently,” the release stated. However, they chose to clarify the accusations made against them personally.
"The investment in the fund referred to in the Hindenburg report was made in 2015 when they were both private citizens living in Singapore and almost two years before Madhabi joined SEBI, even as a Whole Time Member," the Buchs said in a statement today.
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According to the statement, the decision to invest in IPE-Plus Fund was because the Chief Investment Officer, Anil Ahuja, is Dhaval’s childhood friend from school and IIT Delhi and being an ex-employee of Citibank, JP Morgan and 3i Group plc, had many decades of strong investing career.
"As confirmed by Anil Ahuja, at no point in time did the fund invest in any bond, equity, or derivative of any Adani group company," the statement added.
The statement also addressed Dhaval’s appointment as Senior Advisor to Blackstone Private Equity in 2019. They said that this role was due to Dhaval’s expertise in supply chain management and was publicly known long before Madhabi became SEBI Chairperson.
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As per the statement, after his appointment, the Blackstone Group was immediately added to Madhabi’s recusal list maintained with SEBI to avoid any conflict of interest.
The couple also said that over the last two years, SEBI has issued more than 300 circulars, including initiatives to ease of doing business, all of which were approved by SEBI’s board after extensive public consultation, not by the SEBI Chairperson alone. Insinuations that a handful of these matters related to the REIT industry were favours to any specific party are malicious and motivated," the SEBI chief said.
According to the statement, the two consulting firms set up by Madhabi during her time in Singapore, one in India and one in Singapore, became immediately dormant on her appointment with SEBI. These companies and her shareholding in them were explicitly part of her disclosures to SEBI.
After Dhaval retired from Unilever in 2019, he started his own consultancy practice through these companies. His expertise in Supply Chain allowed him to work with prominent clients in the Indian Industry.
"Thus, linking accruals in these companies to Madhabi’s current government salary is malicious," the statement said. It added that when the shareholding of the Singapore entity moved to Dhaval, this was once again disclosed, not just to SEBI, but also to the Singapore authorities and the Indian tax authorities.
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"Hindenburg has been served a show cause notice for a variety of violations in India. It is unfortunate that instead of replying to the show cause notice, they have chosen to attack the credibility of the SEBI and attempt character assassination of the SEBI Chairperson," they said.
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