BalrajIndian billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani, chairman, and founder of multinational conglomerate Adani Group has surpassed Reliance Industries Ltd’s Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s richest person, according to the most recent Bloomberg Billionaires Index tally. Gautam Adani, who currently ranks among the top ten wealthiest individuals in the world, has a net worth of $88.5 billion, which is around $600 million more than Mukesh Ambani’s net worth.
Image Courtesy: Abhijit Bhatlekar
Gautam Adani’s fortune has climbed by about $12 billion years to date, whereas Mukesh Ambani’s wealth has plummeted by about $2.07 billion year to date (YTD). To be precise, Mukesh Ambani is currently the second richest individual from India and Asia, as well as the eleventh richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg’s ranking of the world’s top 500 wealthiest individuals. Ambani’s overall net worth as of February 8 is $87.9 billion.
Mukesh Ambani was crowned the richest person in India and Asia in November of last year, with Gautam Adani behind him by around $2.2 billion. Reliance Industries share price has climbed by around 18.50 percent in the last year. As of Tuesday (i.e Feb 08, 2022) morning, it was trading at Rs 2,312.75 per share. Adani Enterprises Ltd, on the other hand, has surged more than 170 percent in the last year and was trading at Rs 1,741 on Tuesday (i.e Feb 08, 2022) morning.
Gautam Adani has invested in a plethora of freshly emerging sectors, including renewable and other green energy ventures. Some Adani-owned companies, including Adani Total Gas Ltd and Adani Transmission Ltd, have outperformed others in the last year, with the former increasing by nearly 370 percent and the latter increasing by 250 percent. Adani’s FMCG subsidiary Adani Wilmar, which debuted on the benchmark indices on Tuesday, is listed at a 4 percent discount. The ports-to-energy conglomerate recently formed a new subsidiary between Adani Enterprises and EdgeConnex Europe BV to set up a data center in Mumbai, that will run entirely on clean energy.
Bloomberg News quoted Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at brokerage firm HDFC Securities Ltd., “The Adani Group has spotted and entered all the happening sectors at the right time, which has appealed to a select band of foreign portfolio investors. The sectors are capital-intensive and the company has faced little difficulty in raising funds to expand.”
Both billionaires, who made their fortunes in the oil and fossil-fuel industries, have invested in a renewable energy push. According to Bloomberg, Adani has pledged to invest $70 billion this decade to facilitate his company, while Ambani has dedicated $10 billion over the next three years as part of a wider $76 billion renewables investment plan.