ADAG says it is a victim of bear cartel

Hit by a massive sell-off in stocks of various group companies, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group today said it is a victim of a bear cartel that has caused a market value loss of over Rs 3 lakh crore across the infrastructure sector in the past two weeks.

A day after the group's stocks fell by up to 19%, ADAG Group Managing Director Gautam Doshi said that the group has written to market regulator Sebi, the stock exchanges and intelligence agencies to look into the matter.

"There have been concerted efforts to destabilise the markets and the investor sentiments," Doshi said, adding that rumour-mongering by unscrupulous elements have contributed to the sharp fall in the group stocks.

"In the past two weeks, this illegal bear cartel has destroyed market value of over Rs 3 lakh crore in the infrastructure sector," he added.

Doshi said the group intends to take strong legal action against those behind the spread of the rumours, as well as those making irresponsible statements about the group.

Doshi also said the group companies, Reliance Infra and RNRL, as well as their statutory auditors, have not received any notice from auditing regulator ICAI with regard to the consent settlement reached by the two companies with Sebi.

The group stocks, however, today bounced back, defying the overall bearish sentiment in the broader market and surged by up to 11% in early trade.

Reliance Infrastructure, which shed 25.14% in yesterday's session, shot up by 10.97% this morning.

Another major gainer from the Anil Ambani camp was Reliance Communications, which advanced by 7.22% to an early peak of Rs 101.70, after hitting a record low of Rs 90.80 yesterday.

Following the debacle on the bourses yesterday, the Anil Ambani Group had issued a statement after the markets closed, alleging, "a series of completely baseless and motivated rumours have been spread today by our unscrupulous corporate rivals."

"This (rumour-mongering by rivals) has been accompanied by vicious and illegal bear-hammering of our listed stocks to create panic and destabilise the markets," the group had said.

"We have made a formal complaint to SEBI and the stock exchanges to immediately investigate these illegal trades and take appropriate action to safeguard the interests of our over 11 million investors," it added.

Shares of Reliance Broadcast Network also went up by 5.37%, while Reliance Capital jumped by 10.51%, Reliance MediaWorks by 9.31% and Reliance Power by 5.3% today.

Meanwhile, the BSE benchmark Sensex was trading lower by 149.87 points at 17,442.90 at 1050 hours.