Hindenburg Research, known for betting against companies’ stocks and then publishing reports alleging they did wrong, is closing down. The founder said this was planned late last year, and they’re wrapping things up after finishing their current projects. They got a lot of attention after a report that led to huge losses for an Indian billionaire and his businesses. Now, they’re done with their last investigations, which are about possible Ponzi schemes, and they’re giving that information to the people who oversee these things.
The way Hindenburg worked involved short-selling and publishing reports alleging bad behavior which made them a controversial player in the finance world. They’d basically bet a company’s stock price would drop, then release a report about why it should. Some saw them as a watchdog holding powerful companies responsible, while others saw their actions as questionable. The firm’s closing comes after they finished researching the things they were working on.
The founder said the decision to close wasn’t due to outside pressure, but because they’d planned to after completing certain tasks. Now that their final reports are finished and shared with regulators the company is choosing to shut down. Their actions show the company had internal decisions about when to end operations and move things over to regulatory bodies.