New Delhi: Barclays Plc, one of Gautam Adani’s 12 ‘core relationship banks’, is re-evaluating its ties with the Indian conglomerate as a fallout of the American short seller Hindenburg Research’s report that came out earlier this year, Bloomberg reported.Hindenburg Research had flagged Adani group’s improper use of tax havens and concerning debt levels among other malpractices.Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said that the bank’s top executives are scrutinising ties with Adani and are cautious of taking up new deals while a regulatory probe on the group is still on. The bank has renegotiated repayment on some loans, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.Barclays’ revenue from Asia has more than doubled in the last six years, with India leading the way, the report said. “It’s a very tough choice since Adani may turn out to be a winner and the banks certainly want to be associated with winners,” emerging markets investor Mark Mobius of Mobius Capital Partners LLP told Bloomberg. “The amounts are so large it is difficult for a bank to exit the relationship,” he added.While Indian bankers want to revive a relationship with Adani, their London counterparts are more worried about reputational risks in light of the Hindenburg report despite Adani’s denial of the allegations.The group, in a statement to Bloomberg, reaffirmed their relationship with Barclays saying that all 12 of its core relationship banks are secure in their investment and exposure to Adani portfolio companies.A Barclays spokesperson said the bank doesn’t comment on “rumour and speculation, but we note there are many factual inaccuracies,” without elaborating further.Adani’s ties with Barclays go back to a decade when not many global firms were working with the Indian conglomerate. It was also the top overall arranger of bonds for the group from 2016 to 2021 and has been among its leading loan providers, the report said.While the Barclays retreat appears to be worrisome for the Adani group, the challenge for the bank now is to come up with new sources of revenue in India with fewer deals from Adani.The pull-backOnly recently Barclays, along with Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank, helped finance Adani’s $6.5 billion deal to buy Holcim’s cement assets in India, the group’s biggest takeover, the report said.Barclays was a “trusted sounding board,” on the Holcim purchase, providing part of the financing as well as merger advice, Jugeshinder Singh, Adani’s chief financial officer, had said in an interview last year with the Economic Times.The bank has now renegotiated repayment on loans pertaining to the massive cement deal, Bloomberg reported.Barclays was also not part of the recent lending group for Adani, which included ING Bank NV, Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Natixis SA, Standard Chartered Plc, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, financing a data centre.Adani’s remarks on Hindenburg Research’s reportMeanwhile, addressing the group’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday, July 18, Adani said the Hindenburg Research’s report against the conglomerate was an attempt to damage its image, news agency ANI reported.Adani called the report ‘a deliberate and malicious attempt aimed at damaging our reputation and generating a profit by driving down its stock prices’.Hindenburg Research had shorted the company’s stocks just before its launch of the largest follow-on public offering (FPO) in India’s history. After the report was published, Adani Enterprises had to call off the Rs 20,000-crore FPO.Adani also emphasised that the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee’s report had helped rebuild confidence in the Adani group.“The (SC-constituted) expert committee did not find any regulatory failure. The committee’s report not only observed that the mitigating measures undertaken by your company (Adani Group) helped rebuilt confidence but also cited that there were credible charges of targetted destablisation of Indian markets,” Gautam Adani told investors at the AGM.However, the expert committee also noted that because of some repealed provisions in 2018, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) hit a wall in investigating the offshore dealings of the Adani group.The expert committee’s report, released in May, said that “in 2018, the provision of dealing with an ‘opaque structure’ and requiring an FPI to disclose every ultimate natural person at the end of the chain of every owner of economic interest with the FPI was done away with.”However, the report added that the markets regulator suspects wrongdoing, but also finds compliance with various regulations.The apex court has granted SEBI time till August 14 to investigate Hindenburg Research’s allegations against the Adani group.