India's Adani Group, which has found itself in a serious spot of bother following an explosive report by US-based Hindenburg Research, removed Deloitte as the auditor of various UK subsidiaries in 2022, replacing it with Crowe UK, a far smaller accountancy firm.
According to Bloomberg, the latter replaced the Big Four firm as the auditor of UK entities, including Adani Energy Holdings Ltd., after the Indian conglomerate led by Gautam Adani bought them in 2021, according to corporate filings.
Crowe UK is the 12th largest firm by fee income in the country by Accountancy Age.
A scathing short seller attack in January rocked the Adani Group by wiping out $118 billion of its market value and also forced the flagship to call off a share deal. Hindenburg Research accused the group of accounting fraud, stock price manipulation, and pledging their inflated loan shares.
The Indian company has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Among Adani’s UK subsidiaries are a portfolio of renewable power plants across India that were sold to Adani Green Energy Limited by SoftBank Group and Bharti Enterprises two years ago.
Adani hired Crowe UK to audit the companies after the acquisition, replacing Deloitte which used to audit the accounts, the Bloomberg report added.
SoftBank’s had a “UK holding company and thus primary audit was in [the] UK,” Adani Green Energy Limited said in a statement to the Financial Times, which reported the news.
It said that EY — a Big Four firm — audits the group’s listed Indian parent company.
Crowe UK did not immediately respond to a request from Bloomberg for comment.
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