In what takes the investigation by capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) a step further, corporate records accessed by The Indian Express show that the controlling shareholder of Opal Investment Private Ltd, one of the 13 overseas funds under probe and the largest public investor in Adani Power Ltd, is a “single person company” established in the UAE in May 2019. SEBI, in its probe as detailed in the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee’s report on Adani-Hindenburg, had identified one Zenith Commodities General Trading LLC as the controlling shareholder in Opal Investment Pvt Ltd and one Adel Hassan Ahmed Alali of UAE as its beneficial owner, as required under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. In July 2020, Adel also became a director of Opal Investments (Mauritius) and is recorded with the address of Trustlink International, a corporate service provider. The one-man setup in Dubai owns and controls Opal Investment’s APL shares worth over Rs 8,000 crore at the present market value. Corporate records accessed by The Indian Express also show that Opal Investment has dropped its corporate agent Trustlink International and built a website after the Mauritius fund was linked to the Adani Group in the Hindenburg report. In its Adani report this January, Hindenburg Research claimed Opal Investment had no website, “no employees on LinkedIn” and no marketing materials or records that “any of its principals have presented at any investment conferences.” It also claimed that “Opal’s investment portfolio has zero diversification” and consisted “solely of Adani Power shares.” The Hindenburg report further pointed out that Opal Investment was formed the same day — October 4, 2005 — in the same jurisdiction — Mauritius — by the same corporate services provider —Trustlink International — as another entity, Krunal Trade & Investment Pvt Ltd, set up under Vinod Adani as a director. Further, Trustlink’s CEO had publicly stated that he “sits on the board of … the Adani Group” — for example, Adani Global Ltd (Mauritius). He also figured in the DRI’s investigation into over-invoicing charges against the Adani Group. On June 14, show corporate records accessed by The Indian Express, Opal Investment hired a new management company — LTS Management Services Ltd — that became the fund’s secretary and also supplied two nominee directors. At the same time, Opal Investment changed its registered address from Trustlink House to LTS Management’s office address. Opal, however, retained Adel as the third director with Trustlink's address. While switching agents, Opal Investment also registered a website on May 26. On its Home and About pages, opalinvest.net says that Opal Investment Pvt Ltd was incorporated in Mauritius on 4 October 2005 and has been granted a Category 1, Global Business License by the Financial Services Commission, Mauritius. The website says that “the principal activities of the company are that of investment holding and general trading activities” and that “the company is operated by professionals.” It lists the phone number and address of LTS Management and has a gallery of stock photos. Its only other page describes the company’s business activities in laboriously non-specific terms. In its response to the Hindenburg report, the Adani Group described Opal Investment as one of the public shareholders in the listed companies in the Adani Portfolio. “Innuendoes that they are in any manner related parties of the promoters are incorrect. A listed entity does not have control over who buys/sells/owns the publicly traded shares or how much volume is traded, or the source of funds for such public shareholders nor is it required to have such information… under (the) laws of India. Hence we cannot comment on trading pattern or behaviour of public shareholders,” it said. Contacted by The Indian Express, a spokesperson for the Adani Group said in an email: "Please contact the mentioned independent individual shareholders since the details you seek on matters pertaining to them are outside our purview.” Emails sent to Adel, the beneficial owner declared by Opal Investment, at an email recorded with Zenith Commodities (UAE) did not elicit a response. Opal Investment came to own an 8.91 per cent stake in APL following the merger of its subsidiary Growmore Trade and Investment Pvt Ltd with APL in 2011 (eventually cleared by Gujarat High Court in 2012). Due to incremental growth in APL’s share capital, Opal Investment’s stake stood at 4.69 per cent— still its largest public holding — on March 31, 2023. Incorporated in Mauritius in 2010, Growmore Trade and Investment was allotted a 26 per cent stake in APL’s subsidiary Adani Power Maharashtra Limited (APML), which owns Tiroda power plant in Maharashtra’s Gondia, for Rs 567 crore (then USD 128 million) at the face value of Rs 10 per share. However, on the back of the Tiroda project, APML’s holding company APL had already raised Rs 3,000 crore in 2009 through an IPO by issuing shares at Rs 100 or ten times the face value. Following the merger of APL and Growmore, Opal Investment’s 8.91 per cent stake in APL was valued at approximately Rs 2,500 crore (then USD 550 million) in April 2011 Individual shareholders of APL had contested the merger in the Gujarat High Court which in April 2012 sought the opinions of investigating agencies such as the ED and the DRI on the grounds that Growmore was based in tax heaven and did not have any assets. In September 2012, a division bench overruled that order by a single judge and sanctioned the scheme of amalgamation.
