Billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani has reclaimed the second spot on the global billionaires list of Bloomberg and Forbes, racing ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Louis Vitton boss Bernard Arnault.
Last week, the Adani Group chairman had become the world’s second richest man for a brief period before being pipped to the third spot again.
According to the Forbes list, Adani has a net worth is $156.3 billion ( ₹12.44 lakh crore) and is ahead of Louis Vitton’s Bernard Arnault and Jeff Bezos. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani continues to occupy the eighth spot with a wealth of $92 billion. Tesla founder Elon Musk continues to be 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 now has set his eyes on doubling cement manufacturing capacity and become the most profitable manufacturer in the country.
Born in Ahmedabad, Adani dropped out of college to work in the diamond industry before starting his export business in 1988. Seven years later, he won a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port at Mundra in Gujarat, which has now grown to become India’s largest port. Adani simultaneously expanded into thermal power generation and coal mining in India and overseas.
In recent years, the Adani Group has made its presence in petrochemicals, cement, data centres and copper refining, in addition to establishing a renewable energy business with ambitious targets.
His kitchen essentials firm Adani Wilmar is now trying to boost food operations after Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani announced plans to launch consumer goods business.
According to reports, the company has earmarked ₹500 crore from its IPO for purchases. The additional funding will come from internal accruals and ₹3000 crore of planned capital expenditure from next April, Bloomberg reported.