By Yi Wei Wong


India's Adani Enterprises Ltd. on Friday started taking orders for its $2.45 billion secondary share offering, even as stocks of many of the group's companies extended a selloff in the wake of a critical report by U.S. short seller Hindenburg Research.

Adani Total Gas Ltd. and Adani Green Energy Ltd. both slid about 20%, the lower limit on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Adani Transmission Ltd. was 19% lower in afternoon trading, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. lost 18% and Adani Enterprises shed 16%.

Friday was the second day of trading since Hindenburg issued a lengthy report alleging wide-ranging fraud at Adani Group, including the use of shell companies to manipulate its share prices. Adani Group's head of legal has threatened legal action against the short seller, saying the report was an attempt to smear the conglomerate and sabotage the follow-on offering by its flagship company, Adani Enterprises.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire chief executive of U.S.-based hedge fund Pershing Square, weighed in on Twitter, saying he found the Hindenburg report "highly credible and extremely well-researched."

In a stock-exchange disclosure Friday, Adani Enterprises said bidding for its follow-on offering had begun and would run to Jan. 31, if things go as planned. The follow-on public offering, the proceeds from which Adani intends to use to pay down debt and fund capital expenditure, is India's largest to date.

The share sale's anchor investors include the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas Arbitrage, State Bank of India and others.


Write to Yi Wei Wong at yiwei.wong@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-27-23 0407ET