The company reached a peak valuation of £8.58 billion in August 2018. NMC initially dismissed the accusations by Muddy Waters as “principally unfounded, baseless, and misleading.” But to its credit, the company set up an internal review of the allegations, and that review, published this week, ended up not only corroborating almost all of those allegations but uncovering a whole host of other irregularities. However, its shares came crashing down after US-based short seller Muddy Waters Research published a report in December 2019 alleging the company had inflated its cash balances, overpaid for assets and understated its debts. - Short-seller Muddy Waters on Dec. 17 questioned the value of hospital group NMC Health's assets and cash balance, as well as its reported profit and debt in a research note. NMC Health is the UAE's largest private healthcare provider. Muddy Waters, known in financial markets for declaring short equity positions on the basis of its in-house research, said NMC's reported cash balances could be "materially overstated" and said its margins were "too good to be true" relative to UAE-focused publicly traded firms Mediclinic and Aster DM Healthcare . NMC’s $107 million redevelopment of NMC Royal Women’s Hospital in Abu Dhabi “contains numerous red flags,” the short seller said. NMC first responded to the allegations on Wednesday, some 20 hours after Muddy Waters issued its attack, but this is the first time it has moved to address the allegations in full. Insufficient disclosure of related-party transactions, manipulation of the balance sheet and inflated asset purchases are some of Muddy Waters’s most serious allegations. Muddy Waters, known in financial markets for declaring short equity positions on the basis of its in-house research, also said that NMC's asset purchase prices … Muddy Waters said in a research note that NMC’s asset purchase prices and capital expenditures were inflated. What are the allegations against NMC? NMC Health uk:nmc shares plummeted 21% as Muddy Waters Research said it's short the U.K.-listed company, saying it has "serious doubts about the company's financial statements, including its …