NEW YORK (TIP): The controlling shareholder in the largest public investor in Adani Power Ltd (APL) is a “single person company” established in the UAE in 2019, reveal corporate records accessed by the Indian Express.

The company in question is Opal Investment Pvt. Ltd – which is one of the foreign portfolio investors in Adani Power Ltd (APL). The Wall Street Journal had in February reported the firm has links with the Adani family.

The company is based out of Mauritius. It was  formed by Trustlink International Ltd, a financial-services firm with ties to the Adani family, WSJ had reported. The records accessed by the Indian Express, saying that the controlling shareholder of Opal Investment Pvt. Ltd is a ‘single person company’ takes the SEBI investigation one step further.

Opal Investment Pvt. Ltd is one of the 13 overseas funds under the SEBI scanner. The markets regulator identified one Zenith Commodities General Trading LLC as the controlling shareholder in Opal. One Adel Hassan Ahmed Alali of UAE is its beneficial owner, IE reported. In July 2020, Adel also became a director of Opal Investments (Mauritius) and is recorded with the address of Trustlink International, a corporate service provider, the newspaper reported.

The one-man setup in Dubai owns and controls Opal Investment’s APL shares worth over Rs 8,000 crore at the present market value.

In its Adani report earlier this year, Hindenburg Research had claimed that Opal Investment had no website, “no employees on LinkedIn” and no marketing materials or records that “any of its principals have presented at any investment conferences.” It further added that “Opal’s investment portfolio has zero diversification” and consisted “solely of Adani Power shares.”

A web of ‘related’ connections

As mentioned earlier, after the Mauritius fund was linked to Adani, Opal Investment dropped its corporate agent Trustlink International and built a website on May 26, 2023. On its Home and About pages, opalinvest.net says that Opal Investment Pvt. Ltd was incorporated in Mauritius on October 4, 2005 and has been granted a Category 1, Global Business License by the Financial Services Commission, Mauritius. The website says that “the principal activities of the company are that of investment holding and general trading activities” and that “the company is operated by professionals.” The website has a gallery of stock photos and lengthy paragraphs that vaguely describe what the company does.

The Hindenburg report also pointed out that Opal Investment was formed the same day as Krunal Trade & Investment Pvt Ltd. Vinod Adani is a director at Krunal Trade & Investment. Subir Mittra, the chief executive of the Adani family office, is also a director at Krunal Trade, WSJ had reported, citing Mauritius filings.

Both the entities were set up in Mauritius by Trustlink international on October 4, 2005.

One of Trustlink’s directors, Louis Ricardo Caillou, is on the board of Opal. Caillou is also named as a board member of Krunal Trade & Investment Pvt. Ltd.

Separately, Opal came to own an 8.91% stake in APL. This happened after Mauritius-based Growmore Trade and Investment Pvt. Ltd purchased a 26% stake in Adani Power Maharashtra Ltd (APML), an unlisted subsidiary of Adani Power Ltd.

The 8.91% investment was valued at approximately Rs 2,500 crore (then $550 million) in April 2011.

An unknown petitioner had objected against this deal, alleging that Growmore is just a shell company by construct. All the shares of Growmore are held by Opal Investments Pvt Ltd, of which little is known.

However, the deal was eventually cleared by Gujarat high court in 2012.

As part of the deal, Growmore was allotted a 26% stake in APML, which owns Tiroda power plant in Maharashtra’s Gondia, for Rs 567 crore (then $128 million) at the face value of Rs 10 per share, the IE report added.

On the back of the Tiroda project, APML’s holding company APL had already raised Rs 3,000 crore in 2009 through an IPO by issuing shares at Rs 100 or ten times the face value.

Due to incremental growth in APL’s share capital, Opal Investment’s stake stood at 4.69%; however, it is  still its largest public holding as on March 31, 2023, IE noted.

(With inputs from agencies)