DELHI: Indian industrialist Gautam Adani became the world’s third-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Tuesday, the first time an Asian has ranked in the top three.
The self-made billionaire has seen his net value more than double to $137.4 billion within 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 buying and selling and now operates India’s third-largest conglomerate with interests starting from coal mining and edible oils to airports and news media.
His ballooning net value reflects a stratospheric rise available in the market capitalisation of his publicly listed companies, as investors back the Adani Group’s aggressive expansion of old and new businesses.
Shares within the flagship Adani Enterprises — of which the billionaire owns 75 per cent — have soared more than 2,400pc since March 2020, and doubled in worth in the past six months.
Stock price surges in different group firms together with Adani Transmission, Adani Power, Adani Ports and Adani Green Energy have catapulted Adani past fellow Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani.
Born in the city of Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat to a middle-class household, Adani dropped out of college to work briefly in the diamond industry before beginning his export business in 1988.
In 1995, he won a contract to build and operate a industrial shipping port at Mundra in Gujarat, which has since grown to turn into India’s largest port.
On the similar time, Adani expanded into thermal power generation and coal mining in India and abroad.
In recent times, the conglomerate has forayed into petrochemicals, cement, data centres and copper refining, along with establishing a renewable energy business with bold targets.
Current investments in Indian news media and a bid for 5G airwaves this year have raised hypothesis that the billionaire’s empire might soon impinge on sectors dominated by Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
