Gautam Adani is no longer the richest man in Asia, or even in India
BBillionaire and business tycoon Gautam Adani is no longer the richest man in Asia or India, according to Bloomberg.
Over the course of about a week, Adani’s personal net worth has dropped dramatically, having started last week as the third richest person in the world.
On Wednesday, Adani’s net worth fell below Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani, whose company Reliance Industries operates in oil and gas, telecommunications, retail and other sectors. Adani had claimed India’s richest man since February 2022, when he was briefly the second richest person on the planet.
As of now, Adani still holds a fortune of $72 billion, but he has lost the most wealth on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index so far this year. Adani’s plummeting personal net worth – which is down nearly $50 billion this year – follows a report last week from activist investor group Hindenburg Research on the eponymous company. ‘Adani. The short seller’s report alleged that $218 billion of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud” had taken place within the Adani Group over several decades.
The Hindenburg report alleges that significant stakes in Adani Group subsidiaries are held by shell offshore entities controlled by relatives, significantly inflating the value of the group.
The company said its report was based on dozens of interviews, including with senior Adani Group executives, as well as thousands of documents and site visits in various countries.
Adani Group strongly denied the allegations on Sunday in a 413-page rebuttal. The company also threatened to take legal action against the short seller.
Read more: Adani defends himself after allegations of fraud. But the real victim could be India’s reputation
As a result of the report, Adani Enterprises, the flagship of the Adani Group, and its subsidiaries lost more than $90 billion in market value on Wednesday. The results also had a ripple effect on other Indian companies; state-owned Life Insurance Company of India, which has a large stake in Adani Enterprises, also saw a significant drop in its share price since the publication of the Hindenburg report.
These recent losses have cost India a place in the world’s top five stock markets, after India’s market capitalization fell to $3.2 trillion on Monday.
The blow to Adani’s personal net worth, the market value of his businesses and the ripple effect on various other Indian conglomerates is having consequences that observers say reach the highest levels of government. The Adani Group is the company most closely associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Adani’s rise has been touted as an achievement synonymous with India’s growth since Modi took office in 2014.
Adani’s net worth has grown 900% in the past two years alone.
The Adani Group called Hindenburg’s report a “calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions”.
Despite the rout, Adani Enterprises was able to raise $2.5 billion in a stock sale that closed on Tuesday. The ability to raise the full amount was seen as a sign of confidence by investors. One of the big backers was Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company, an existing investor in Adani Enterprises, which said in a statement it believed in the fundamentals of the Indian conglomerate.
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