MUMBAI: Adani Enterprises Ltd, the flagship of Asia’s richest man Gautam Adani, is back to where it stood just before the conglomerate’s crisis began more than three years ago: the best-performing stock on India’s equity benchmark.
The shares have surged 34% so far in 2026, putting the company on track to end the year as the top gainer on the NSE Nifty 50 Index.
It last held that spot at the end of 2022, weeks before Hindenburg Research’s short-seller report in January 2023 sparked a selloff that wiped more than US$150bil off the power-to-ports group’s market value at one point.
The rally has come alongside share purchases from investors, including The Capital Group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, and SBI Funds Management Ltd as the conglomerate rebuilds investor support after the short-seller attack, bribery allegations against Gautam and Sagar Adani by US authorities and scrutiny from India’s market regulator.
Morgan Stanley in June rated Adani Enterprises as “overweight”, initiating the Wall Street bank’s coverage on the stock.
The revival is refocusing the spotlight on Adani as a proxy for India’s infrastructure boom. Investors are putting money into the conglomerate’s ports, airports and power businesses, while overseas lender are also showing more willingness to take exposure.
AdaniConneX Pvt, the group’s data centre joint venture with EdgeConneX, recently secured a loan of about US$800mil to fund its expansion.
“Adani is essentially playing the India growth story through infrastructure,” said Vinit Bolinjkar, head of research at Ventura Securities, who has had a “buy” rating on the flagship since 2022.
“Few businesses can offer the kind of 20 to 30-year visibility that Adani’s infrastructure businesses can.”
The comeback got another boost last week. A US District Judge permanently dismissed the securities fraud charges against the Adanis, ending a 2024 case that had hung over the group.
And the index provider MSCI Inc’s latest review raised the free-float factors for several Adani firms, increasing their weights in its gauges.
The changes can spur buying from passive funds that track the indexes.
The gains have extended beyond the flagship. Shares of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd have risen more than 14% so far this year.
The company began full-fledged operations on Tuesday at the Vizhinjam International Seaport, which is slated to undergo a 160 billion rupees (US$1.7bil) second-phase expansion.
The rebound still has some way to go. Adani Enterprises has coverage from just four brokerages, the least among Indian companies valued at more than four trillion rupees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. — Bloomberg
