Gautam Adani, the billionaire tycoon, has reclaimed the second spot on Bloomberg and Forbes’ global billionaires’ list, leapfrogging Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Louis Vitton CEO Bernard Arnault. Last week, the Adani Group chairman briefly became the world’s second richest man before falling back to third place.
According to Forbes, Adani’s net worth is $156.3 billion (12.44 lakh crore), putting him ahead of Louis Vitton’s Bernard Arnault and Jeff Bezos. Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, remains in eighth place with a fortune of $92 billion. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, remains the world’s richest man, with a net worth of $277 billion (22.05 lakh crore).
The 60-year-old tycoon recently completed a $6.5 billion acquisition of cement firms Ambuja Cements and ACC, and he now plans to double cement manufacturing capacity and become the country’s most profitable manufacturer.
Adani, who was born in Ahmedabad, dropped out of college to work in the diamond industry before launching his export business in 1988. Seven years later, he was awarded a contract to construct and operate a commercial shipping port in Mundra, Gujarat, which has since grown to become India’s largest port. Adani expanded into thermal power generation and coal mining in India and abroad at the same time.
In recent years, the Adani Group has established a presence in petrochemicals, cement, data centres, and copper refining, in addition to establishing an ambitious renewable energy business.
After Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani announced plans to launch a consumer goods business, his kitchen essentials firm Adani Wilmar is now attempting to expand its food operations.
According to reports, the company has set aside 500 crore from its IPO for acquisitions. Bloomberg reported that the additional funding will come from internal accruals and a 3000 crore capital expenditure planned for next April.