Gautam Adani, who is one of the richest persons in the world, is an Indian business tycoon who founded the Adani Group in 1988.
He was born on 24 June 1962 to a middle-class Jain family in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. His father was Shantilal and his mother was Shanti Adani. He has seven siblings and the eldest is Mansukhbhai Adani. The family migrated from the town of Tharad in northern Gujarat in search of a livelihood. His father was a small textile merchant.
He did his schooling at Sheth C.N. Vidyalaya School in Ahmedabad. At Gujarat University, he took admission for a bachelor’s degree in commerce, but he dropped out after the second year.
He married Priti Adani, who is a dentist and leads Adani Foundation. They have two sons namely Karan Adani and Jeet Adani.
Gautam Adani was abducted in 1998 and held hostage in return for ransom. Later, he was released when money was paid to the hostages. During the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he was at the Taj Hotel. Later, he was rescued safely.
Gautam Adani moved to Mumbai in his teenage years in 1978 and worked as a diamond sorter for Mahendra Brothers. He worked there for around two to three years before establishing his own diamond brokerage firm at Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai.
In Ahmedabad, Gautam’s elder brother Mansukhbhai Adani brought a plastics unit in 1981 and invited him to manage operations. This venture turned out to be Adani’s gateway to global trading via Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) imports.
He then started importing primary polymers for small-scale industries in 1985. Adani established Adani Exports in 1988 and is now known as Adani Enterprises. The company deals in agriculture and power commodities.
In the 90s business expanded. For the Adani group, economic liberalisation policies turned out to be favourable in 1991 and he started expanding it into the trading of metals, textiles, and agro products.
Adani got the Mundra Port contract in 1995. He set up the first Jetty in 1995. It was originally operated by Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone. Later, the operations were transferred to Adani Ports & SEZ (APSEZ). Nowadays, is the largest private multi-port operator.
Adani Power was founded by Adani which is the power business arm of the Adani Group in 1996. It holds thermal power plants of around 4620 capacity and is the largest thermal power producer in the country.
He also entered the power generation business in 2006. He also acquired Abbot Point Port in Australia and Carmichael coal mine in Queensland from 2009 to 2012.
Adani won the world’s largest solar bid by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) worth $6 billion in May 2020. Adani Green in the future will also take the project of an 8000 MW photovoltaic power plant. Adani Solar will establish 2000 MW of additional solar cell and module manufacturing capacity.
Gautam Adani is the president of the Adani Foundation. The foundation not only operates in Gujarat but also operates in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.
As per some reports, he contributed around Rs 100 crore to the PM Cares Fund in March 2020 through his group’s philanthropy arm to fight against COVID-19. Also, around Rs 5 crore was contributed to the Gujarat CM Relief Fund and Rs 1 Crore to the Maharashtra CM Relief Fund.
Net worth of Adani:
Gautam Adani became the world’s second richest person today, but only for a brief period. The tycoon surpassed Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Louis Vuitton’s Bernard Arnault to grab the second spot with a net worth $154.7 billion, showed Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, before he was pushed back to the third position by Arnault.
Elon Musk remains the richest person with a net worth of $273.5 billion.
Last month too, Mr Adani had overtaken Arnault to grab the third spot, but was behind Musk and Bezos. This time he overtook Bezos for a brief period.
With him occupying the second spot, Arnault was pushed to the third with his family’s net worth falling to $153.5 billion as it slumped by $4.9 billion. Arnault has reoccupied the position with his wealth totalling $152.8 billion though it fell further.
Mr Adani’s wealth, meanwhile, slumped to $151.3 billion as his gains were slash to $1.1 billion from over $4 billion, and he settled at the third position.
Bezos stands fourth with a wealth of $149.7 billion that declined by $2.3 billion.
