Shares in Adani Group companies fell after well-known US activist investor Hindenburg Research said it was shorting the empire’s stocks and accused firms owned by Asia’s richest man of “brazen” market manipulation and accounting fraud.

Billionaire Gautam Adani’s flagship firm Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone dropped as much as 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent respectively on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) after Hindenburg, a US-based investment research firm that specialises in activist short-selling, made wide-ranging allegations of corporate malpractice following a two-year investigation into the tycoon’s companies.

Bloomberg