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Gautam Adani has had a good start to 2024.
After a difficult year, the Indian tycoon has just regained his former position as the richest man in Asia, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The founder of the extensive Adani Group is now worth 88.8 billion euros, making the businessman the 12th richest person on the planet.
The self-taught industrialist, who dropped out of college, gained almost 12 billion euros in net worth in the last two days, allowing him to surpass his compatriot Mukesh Ambani as the continent’s biggest billionaire, according to that index. Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, is currently worth €88.2 billion.
The jump in Adani’s wealth – the biggest in the world this year, according to the index – comes almost 12 months after his ports-to-energy conglomerate was accused of “blatant stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme”.
As a result of the scrutiny that followed these accusations, Adani’s fortune, which as of September 2021 was worth more than that of Jeff Bezos, has suffered a stunning decline. At one point, the businessman lost more than 70 billion euros, especially after the publication of the Hindenburg report in January 2023.
His net worth recovered somewhat in the months that followed. At the end of last year, the Bloomberg index put his wealth at €76.7 billion, but that was still more than 40% below the September 2022 level.
In its investigation, which, according to Hindenburg, took two years to compile, the American company questioned the “very high valuations” of Adani companies and stated that their “substantial debt” put the entire group “in a precarious financial situation”. Short sellers make money by betting that company stocks will fall.
The Adani Group published a 400-page reaction, calling Hindenburg’s analysis “nothing more than a lie.” But this did not prevent the stock market collapse at the beginning of last year, which affected the conglomerate’s market value and Adani’s personal fortune, which was also the target of an investigation by the Indian regulator.
But Adani shares rose this week after India’s Supreme Court ordered the regulator to quickly close its investigation and said no further investigation into the group was necessary.
Adani welcomed the decision, stating that “truth has prevailed” and that his “humble contribution to India’s growth story will continue”. Shares of Adani Enterprises, its flagship company, rose nearly 7% this week.
Seen as a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Adani has often been compared to business tycoons such as John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt, who built vast monopoly companies in the 19th century during America’s Gilded Age.
The businessman began his career in diamond trading, before creating a commodity trading company in 1988, which later became Adani Enterprises. He currently owns companies in key sectors ranging from ports and electricity to social media and clean energy.
Before the Hindenburg saga began, markets had incessantly applauded Adani, betting on its ability to grow activity in sectors that Modi prioritized for development.
