Who is Hindenburg ? The U.S short seller that accused Nigerian firm of scam

Hindenburg, a U.S-based short seller and independent research firm that accused Nigerian agri-fintech Tingo Group of “exceptionally obvious scam” is set to shut down nearly eight years after operations.

The closure announcement was made by its founder Nate Anderson on Wednesday after the 39-year-old expressed desire to spend more time with his family and friends.

Founded in 2017, Hindenburg Research rose to fame for exposing alleged financial irregularities in some big-name businesses. The firm’s reports have led to businesses, both in Nigeria and abroad, losing billions of dollars in market value.

Short-sellers like Hindenburg bet against stocks of companies that they believe have been involved in fraud or other financial wrongdoings, based on their investigations. The process involves borrowing a stock, immediately selling it and then repurchasing it when its value goes down to hold on to the difference.

Read also: Tingo Group denies fraud allegations, calls Hindenburg’s report “opinion”

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

In 2023, Hindenburg Research criticized the founder of Tingo Group and alleged that the fintech firm had “fabricated” its financials, a situation that halved the shares value of the company.

The U.S activist research firm also said Tingo was an “exceptionally obvious scam” and called out founder Dozy Mmobuosi’s claims of having developed “the first mobile payment app in Nigeria”.

The New Jersey-based holding company, whose shares shed more than 53 percent to $1.20 following the investigative report which operates in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East struggled to find its footings despite stating that the allegations were full of “misleading and libellous content”.

In 2020, the company also accused electric truck maker Nikola Corp of misleading investors about its technologies. In 2022, the company’s founder, Trevon Milton, was found guilty of lying to investors and convicted of fraud.

In 2023, it published a report accusing the Adani group of decades of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”. Adani, one of Asia’s richest men and his company denied the allegations, calling them “malicious” and an “attack on India”.

In the days following the report, the Adani group lost about $108 billion in market value but the firm’s financial health has bounced back since.

Last year, Hindenburg Research accused Madhabi Puri Buch – the chief of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) – of having links with offshore funds used by the Adani group. Both Ms Buch and the Adanis denied any wrongdoing.

Allegations by the firm have sparked furious political rows in the country, with India’s main opposition Congress party accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of not taking action against the Adani group.

In his statement, Anderson expressed a desire to open-source Hindenburg’s research methodology in the future.

“Over the next six months or so I plan to work on a series of materials and videos to open-source every aspect of our model and how we conduct our investigations,” he wrote.