Hindenburg Research, the famous US-based short seller, to be disbanded, says founder: 5 things you need to know

According to news reports, investors suffered a huge loss of ₹7,00,000 crore ($82.9 billion) in ten Adani group companies after Hindenburg Research released the report alleging the group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over decades” in January 2023 and culminating in the US court indictment of ₹2,000 crore bribery charge to secure energy contracts in November 2024.

Hindenburg Research resurfaced in August 2024 with fresh accusations.

The report alleged conflicts of interest involving SEBI chair Madhabi Puri Buch, claiming her ties to offshore funds connected to the Adani Group prevented a deeper investigation.

Both Buch and her husband denied the allegations, labeling them baseless.

Apart from Gautam Adani, the short seller targeted billionaires Jack Dorsey and Carl Icahn.

“There is not one specific thing—no particular threat, no health issue, and no big personal issue,” Anderson wrote in a letter posted on the firm’s website Wednesday. “The intensity and focus have come at the cost of missing much of the rest of the world and the people I care about. I now view Hindenburg as a chapter in my life, not a central thing that defines me.”

Anderson, 40, made international waves in January 2023, publishing a report accusing Adani of “pulling the largest con in corporate history.” The Indian tycoon ranked as the world’s fourth-richest person at the time, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The bear also published reports on Dorsey’s Block Inc. and Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises.

All three financiers and their businesses adamantly disputed Hindenburg’s assertions. Still, that year the trio saw their collective wealth swoon by as much as $99 billion while their publicly traded companies lost as much as $173 billion of market value.

• Anderson founded Hindenburg in 2017, and the company has published negative research reports about dozens of companies in the years since. One of Hindenburg’s first high-profile reports came in 2020 and was focused on vehicle startup Nikola. Part of the report included an allegation that Nikola had faked the autonomous capabilities of a semi-truck in a video, which the company later admitted. Nikola founder Trevor Milton was later sentenced to four years in prison.

Hindenburg was named after the high-profile disaster of Germany's Hindenburg airship in 1937, which ignited as it flew into New Jersey.

• Hindenburg was a short seller as well as a research house. This means that the firm was placing bets against the companies it was researching, putting it in a position to profit if the stock declined.

Short-selling involves borrowing a stock to sell it in the expectation the price will fall, then repurchasing the shares and pocketing the difference. Should the price rise, the seller can be exposed to potentially unlimited losses.

• The most recent report filed by the company was on January 2 about auto retailer Carvana, which it called a “father-son accounting grift for the ages.” In a statement, Carvana called the firm’s report “intentionally misleading and inaccurate.” The stock fell more than 11% the day after Hindenburg published its report but has since recovered.

• By early 2020, Hindenburg’s impact and reputation were growing. At one point, he built an 11-person team. Despite his earlier misgivings about his capabilities, he said he and his group proved they could have a big impact.

“Nearly 100 individuals have been charged civilly or criminally by regulators, at least in part through our work, including billionaires and oligarchs,” Anderson wrote. “We shook some empires that we felt needed shaking.”

• Anderson said he’s winding up his firm as of Wednesday after working through the last of its ideas and handing off tips on suspected Ponzi schemes to regulators. Over the next six months, he plans to work on a series of videos and materials on Hindenburg’s model, so others can learn how the firm conducted investigations.