The third-richest person in the world is Indian business magnate, Gautam Adani, a college dropout who first tried his luck as a diamond trader before switching to coal.
It’s the first time an Asian has entered the top three of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index; Jack Ma of China and fellow citizen, Mukesh Ambani have never done so. With a fortune of $137.4 billion, Adani has surpassed Bernard Arnault of France and is now just behind US billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in terms of wealth.
The 60-year-old Adani has invested the last five years in growing his coal-to-ports conglomerate by foraying into a variety of industries, including data centers, cement, media, and alumina.
The group today controls the largest private-sector coal miner, city-gas distributor, and operator of ports and airports in India. Environmentalists have attacked the company’s Carmichael mine in Australia, but it promised in November to invest $70 billion in renewable energy to become the greatest generator in the world.
With the disclosure that the Adani enterprises are planning to buy 29% holdings in NDTV, one of India’s main news networks, the enormous conglomerate made headlines last week. The acquisition, according to NDTV, is contingent on the approval of market regulator SEBI, which the conglomerate has rejected.
Furthermore, the Adani Group is significantly overleveraged and may fall into a debt trap, according to a recent analysis by Fitch group unit CreditSights.
Adani has increased his wealth by $60.9 billion in 2022 alone, five times more than any other person. He initially eclipsed Ambani as the wealthiest Asian in February, hit the billionaire mark in April, and this month passed Bill Gates of Microsoft Corp. to become the fourth-richest person in the world.
Billionaires and philanthropy
- Some of the wealthiest American-born billionaires have enabled Adani to exceed them in wealth, partly as a result of their recent surge in philanthropy.
- While Warren Buffett has previously given the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation more than $35 billion, Bill Gates said in July that he would transfer $20 billion to the organization.
- Adani has also upped his donations to charity. In order to celebrate his 60th birthday, he promised to donate $7.7 billion to charitable causes in June.
