Saturday, February 4, 2023

What Adani means for India

A week of Big Take.

Feb. 4, 2023

Gautam Adani, billionaire and chairman of Adani Group. Photographer: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg

Just last weekend, this newsletter focused on the challenges and opportunities facing India's economy. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is spending billions of dollars to make his country the next global economic powerhouse. Billions alone won't be enough, Bloomberg reporters Kai Schultz and Vrishti Beniwal wrote. Modi will need to get red tape and corruption under control

Now, a scathing short-seller report has taken aim at the country's most prominent business. 

The Adani Group has shed $108 billion in market value since Hindenburg Research accused it of stock manipulation and accounting fraud in a Jan. 24 report. But it was only when the tycoon scrapped a $2.4 billion share sale this week that the potential for lasting impact became clear. Adani's 413-page rebuttal failed to reassure investors. Once ranked No. 2 among the world's wealthiest, Gautam Adani has tumbled to No. 21 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Adani is ingrained in India's economy. It's a logistics business. It controls ports and terminals. It's an energy company.  Yet Hindenburg's report has raised bigger questions about India's credibility as a global growth engine and a destination for international investors. 

Gambling revenue in Macau surged in January as tourists returned during the Lunar New Year.  Photographer: Eduardo Leal/Bloomberg

Meanwhile, China's reopening is set to provide a welcome boost to global growth, offsetting weakness in Europe and a potential recession in the US. 

Copper prices have already jumped above $9,000 a ton and Chinese oil consumption is forecast to hit a record this year. Macau's gambling revenue jumped 82.5% in January. China's reopening could even shorten a predicted UK recession as high-spending tourists return.

There's a catch though: A boost to inflation from all that activity comes at exactly the same moment the Federal Reserve and other central banks are racing to bring prices under control. 

A neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona. Photographer: John Wollwerth / Alamy

In Phoenix, there's something interesting happening in the housing market: The everyday homebuyers are beating out those supposedly experienced Wall Street and Silicon Valley iBuyers.

Last year, institutional buyers in the Phoenix area represented a bigger share of home purchases than in any other major US market. They bought and sold residential properties like securities, leveraging technology and sophisticated algorithms. But as prices become more volatile, the tables have turned

This week on the podcast, an Anti-Defamation League study found a sharp rise in the number of people who say they've encountered white supremacist ideology while playing online video games. The persistent presence of individual gamers and groups spreading hate in gaming communities has led to calls for the industry to do more to stop it.  The question is, how?

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Quote of the Week

"They stood on the outskirts of our efforts with their video cameras and filmed what we were doing as if it was them."
Rob Gaudet
Founder of Cajun Navy Ground Force
Gaudet worked alongside Sean Penn's disaster-relief charity CORE in Florida after Hurricane Ian last year. CORE employees say the organization failed to shield them from alleged sexual harassment or address financial mismanagement

Number of the Week

$11.4 billion
How much Michael Platt — one the richest people in the UK — has made making extreme bets on the markets.

From the Archives

  • A Chinese spy tried to steal GE's secrets. Instead he got caught by the US— and gave the world an unprecedented glimpse into China's espionage apparatus. 
  • Ron DeSantis is winning voters taking on "woke" corporate America (and ignoring Donald Trump).  
  • For generations, members of one family have died of ALS. A Biogen treatment could break that chain — and escalate a fight over who gets to take experimental drugs, and when.

Tune In: One family convinced tens of thousands of people to buy a miracle cure, proposed to fix any ailment. It was really bleach. Listen to the new podcast Deadly Cure on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

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