Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure plunges 11% after Sebi’s punitive action

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure: After the action taken by the Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi) against Anil Ambani and other key personnel associated with Reliance Anil Dhiurbhai Ambani Group of companies, the shares of Reliance Infrastructure plunged 10.75 per cent with no recovery on Monday despite strong positive market momentum. 

On August 26, the stock fell as much as 4.39 per cent intraday to hit a day low of Rs 205.55 apiece. As of 02:12 pm, the shares of the company were trading 1.23 per cent or 2.60 points lower at Rs 209.16 apiece. 

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group company shares including Reliance Home Finance Ltd, Reliance Power, and Reliance Communications also touched their lower circuit limits on Monday. 

On August 23, Sebi banned Anil Ambani, along with 24 others, from the securities market for five years on the allegations of fund diversion from Reliance Home Finance Ltd.

Sebi slapped a penalty of Rs 25 crore on Ambani while disqualifying him from acting as director and KMP in any listed company or Sebi-registered entity for five years. Besides, penalties ranging from Rs 21 crore to Rs 25 crore were imposed on 24 entities involved while Reliance Home Finance was barred from the securities market for six months besides a fine of Rs 6 lakh.

The regulatory action followed complaints of siphoning off funds from Reliance Home Finance. Sebi's probe in the fiscal year 2018-19 found Ambani, along with RHFL's KMPs Amit Bapna, Ravindra Sudhalkar and Pinkesh R Shah, having orchestrated a scheme for the siphoning off of funds from RHFL by disguising them as loans to related entities. Despite the board's directions, RHFL management continued the same and rather entered more such transactions that resulted in defaults and finally resolution of the company under the RBI Framework.