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New Delhi: The Hindenburg report may be the “best thing” that ever happened to billionaire Gautam Adani, as it could bring financial discipline to the conglomerate, economist Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar has said.

In a column published in The Economic Times, Mr Aiyar argues that the Adani Group, pummeled by a stock rout after US short-seller Hindenburg Research’s report, will benefit by slowing the “breakneck speed” at which it has been expanding and diversifying.

“I think the Hindenburg report may be the best thing that ever happened to Adani. It will slow his speed of expansion and diversification and force his financiers to be diligent and cautious in future. This could impose highly desirable financial discipline on Adani, to his own benefit,” he writes.

“Hindenburg may have been a blessing in disguise - or, in Winston Churchill’s words in response to his wife trying to cheer him up after his post-war electoral defeat, a blessing ‘quite effectively disguised’.”

“One day I might actually buy Adani shares,” he says, adding that he did not own any Adani company shares because of “high prices and high risk”.

Seven listed companies of the Adani Group have lost some $125 billion in market value after the Hindenburg report alleged improper use of tax havens and stock manipulation by the apples-to-airports conglomerate.