Adani is third richest globally
INDIAN industrialist Gautam Adani was named as the world’s third-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Tuesday (30), the first time an Asian has been ranked in the top three.
The self-made billionaire has seen his net worth more than double to $137.4 billion (£117.48bn) in the last year, rising 20 spots on the index to now rank just behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, Bloomberg News reported.
Adani, 60, made his fortune in ports and commodities trading. He now operates India’s third-largest conglomerate with interests ranging from coal mining and edible oils to airports and media.
His ballooning net worth reflects a stratospheric rise in the market capitalisation of his publicly listed companies, as investors back the Adani Group’s aggressive expansion of old and new businesses.
Shares in the flagship Adani Enterprises – of which the billionaire owns 75 per cent – have soared more than 2,400 percent since March 2020, and doubled in value in the past six months. Stock price surges in other group companies including Adani Transmission, Adani Power, Adani Ports and Adani Green Energy have catapulted Adani past fellow Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani.
Born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to a middle-class family, Adani dropped out of college to work briefly in the diamond industry before starting his export business in 1988.
In 1995, he won a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port at Mundra in Gujarat, which has since grown to become India’s largest port.
At the same time, Adani expanded into thermal power generation and coal mining in India and overseas.
In recent years, the conglomerate has forayed into petrochemicals, cement, data centres and copper refining, in addition to establishing a renewable energy business with ambitious targets.
Recent investments in Indian news media and a bid for 5G airwaves this year have raised speculation Adani’s empire could soon impinge on sectors dominated by Ambani’s Reliance Industries.