Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani, the chairman of the Adani Group, has overtaken France’s Bernard Arnault, the chief of Louis Vuitton, to become the world’s third richest individual, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
With a total net worth of USD 137.4 billion, 60-year-old Adani has surpassed the wealth of Louis Vuitton chairman Arnault and is now just behind business magnate Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the ranking.It’s the first time an Asian has broken into the top three of the list, even fellow citizen Reliance chief Mukesh Ambani and China’s Jack Ma never made it that far. The latest data as per the index shows that Ambani is at number 11 with a total USD 91.9 billion worth.
The index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.
The net worth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are currently at USD 251 billion and USD 153 billion, respectively.Adani has spent the past few years expanding his coal-to-ports conglomerate, venturing into everything from data centers to cement, media and alumina. The group now owns India’s largest private-sector port and airport operator, city-gas distributor and coal miner. While its Carmichael mine in Australia has been criticized by environmentalists, it pledged in November to invest $70 billion in green energy to become the world’s largest renewable-energy producer.
But worries are growing over the exponential growth. Adani’s deals spree has been predominantly funded with debt and his empire is “deeply over-leveraged,” CreditSights said in a report this week/in August. In the worst-case scenario, that could lead to a default, the Fitch Group unit warned.Some lawmakers and market watchers have also raised concerns over opaque shareholder structures and a lack of analyst coverage at Adani Group companies. Yet the shares have soared — some of them more than 1,000% since 2020, with valuations hitting 750 times earnings — as the tycoon focused on areas that Prime Minister Narendra Modi deems crucial to meeting India’s long-term goals.
