Why Hindenburg And Nate Anderson Are Running For Cover

As the hours tick by, inching closer to President-Elect Donald Trump’s taking office, multiple connected bad actors are fleeing the sinking Biden ship. The latest one is, of course, Hindenburg and its founder Nathan or Nate Anderson. 

In a post on the Hindenburg website, Anderson announced that he is disbanding the research firm. Shutting down the short selling “adventure” that has earned him glory and at least $4 million from one trade—the Adani Group.

The question, though, is why is he running for cover? He himself gives no reason in his sorry note on the website.

The Hindenburg Research LLC registered in Delaware, US, has not made public any annual reports or statements of accounts. Their funders are unknown. Their trades are unknown. And yet, they called themselves “activist short-sellers.”.

There is merit in viewing the chronology of events from afar. In January 2023, Hindenburg released a report alleging malpractice by the Adani Group. But not before they had shared the report with Kingdon Capital LLC, a hedge fund helmed by Mark Kingdon in the US as part of a profit-sharing agreement. Kingdon’s Chinese-American wife, Anla Cheng, has close connections with the Communist Party of China. Kingdon Capital put in $40 million into the Adani short and made $9.2 million in profit after squaring off. The lion’s share went to Kingdon, of course, and to the Kotak-linked India fund that helped the trade. Nate got just $4 million for all his efforts.

Once the Hindenburg report was published in January 2023, the self-proclaimed investigative journalistic organisation OCCRP swooped down, picked it up, and amplified the flawed report the world over.

Back home, Adani Group stocks tanked, and Rs 8.13 lakh crore of investor wealth was eroded. It took them a year to build back from that loss.

The Supreme Court, SEBI, and a three-member independent committee all debunked the claims made by Hindenburg and ally OCCRP in 2024.

Come the 2024 US elections, and Donald Trump’s thumping victory sent alarm bells ringing through the administration. The Clinton-Obama Deep State actors began to leave the building.

CIA Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after the assassination attempt on Trump. FBI Director Christopher Wray has announced that he will resign. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who tried Trump in the hush money case, has resigned. So has Breon Peace, US Attorney General for the Eastern District of New York, who brought an indictment against the Adani promoters. US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler will resign on Jan. 20.

The backbone for the Obama/Biden administration, George Soros, was suitable rewarded with the highest civilian honour in the US—the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hillary Clinton too was awarded the same for her yeoman services in setting up the regime change operators across the world.

Now Nate Anderson too has packed up.

"With Hindenburg shutting down mere days before Trump takes office, the message couldn’t be clearer: the attacks on Prime Minister Modi, the Adani Group, and India’s stock market regulator were not just about profit—they were part of a calculated and synchronised effort to sow instability in India," Jai Anant Dehadrai said in a post on social media platform X.

"The money-trail from this individual will lead to some of the most notorious criminal entities to have ever existed - worldwide."

A hint of what is likely to arrive at Anderson’s doorstep can be found in the case of Andrew Left and his research firm Citron Research. Left, another self-professed “activist short-seller,” is facing criminal charges of fraud filed by the SEC.

The SEC has charged Left with manipulating stock markets, defrauding investors by misleading them about his trades, reversing his trades while inducing his social media followers to do the opposite, and not disclosing that he had taken money from hedge funds to give calls.

Here is an excerpt from the SEC’s filing before court that outlines the fraudulent practices Left was up to.

“First, Left established long or short exposure in the target company through equity shares and/or options. Next, Left issued reports and tweets informing his readers or leading them to believe that he had long or short exposure in the target company. Left then recommended that his readers trade in the same direction as his positions. Finally, in many cases, Left gave his readers a purported price target, i.e., a share price at which the stock would trade. Following Left’s reports and tweets, the price of these target stocks moved on average more than 12%. Unbeknownst to the market, however, Left planned to capitalise on those price movements and quickly reverse his own positions in the equity shares and options—which he had induced readers to follow—but at prices far higher (or lower) than the price targets Left had pushed to his readers and the marketplace. In other words, Left bought back the stock almost immediately after telling his readers to sell, and Left sold stock almost immediately after telling his readers to buy. This fraudulent practice deceived investors and allowed Left to use his Citron Research reports and tweets as catalysts from which he could derive short-term profits.”

The court filing also details how Left pretended that his Citron Research was an “independent research outlet that had never received compensation from hedge funds, when in fact they had.”

Nate Anderson has reason to worry—he has, in fact, done more or less what Andrew Left has. And his profit-sharing agreement with Kingdon Capital and K-India Opportunities Fund could expose him to the glare of the SEC under its sweeping Section 17(a) of The Securities Act 1933. 

It reads as follows:

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person in the offer or sale of any securities by the use of any means or instruments of transportation or communication in interstate commerce or by the use of the mails, directly or indirectly,

(1) to employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud, or

(2) to obtain money or property by means of any untrue statement of a material fact or any omission to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or

                (3) to engage in any transaction, practice, or course of business that operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon the purchaser.

Anderson may have shut his research firm down in a bid to lie low and hope to escape scrutiny. Nevertheless, US law is clear on this. Research firm or not, Nate Anderson could well be facing his own personal Hindenburg.