In 2022 the name of Gautam Adani, since he became the second richest person in the world, at least for a few weeks. At that time we hardly knew anything about him, compared to personalities like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or Bernard Arnault. However, today it is on all the front pages of the world and not for a good reason. The Indian-born Entrepreneur has lost more than 100,000 million dollars, he dropped out of the top 10 in the billionaire indexes and is no longer the richest man in Asia.
What happened to Gautam Adani?
The Indian tycoon, president of the sprawling conglomerate Adani Groupwas accused of Hindenburg Research (a famous short seller) of manipulating the share price of his companies for decades. The report mentions that it was “the biggest scam in corporate history”.
For his part, Gautam Adani denied all the allegations against him and portrayed the short seller as an attempted direct attack on India, his home country. Adani Group He communicated his position in a 413-page text, where he also qualifies Hindenburg’s report as an “absolute lie” and affirms that they had “complied with all the laws.”
However, this news already had repercussions in the drop in Adani Group sharesand even affected the country market. In this way, the businessman also lost the title of the richest person in Asia, being surpassed by Mikesh AmbaniPresident of Reliance Industries Ltd.
The millionaire loss of Adani Group
The reports indicate that Gautam Adani lost $108 billion in one week. This is one of the biggest losses in Indian history. Now the tycoon fights to stabilize his companies and defend his reputation.
“The fundamentals of our company are solid. Our balance sheet is healthy and assets are solid. Once the market stabilizes, we will review our capital market strategy,” Adani said in a video posted on his social media.
On February 1, 2023, a $2.5 billion secondary share offering was abruptly withdrawn, citing “unprecedented” market conditions.
One of his companies, Adani Enterprises, fell 27% on February 2 and its shares closed at their lowest level since March 2022. Added to this is a previous 28% plunge. The companies Adani Total Gas, Adani Green Energy Y Adani Transmission lost ground with a 10% slump, while Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone registered a decrease of almost 7%.
Because of this, Credit Suisse Y Citigroup they stopped accepting some securities issued by Adani’s companies as collateral for margin loans to wealthy clients.
Since the report, the group’s companies have lost nearly half their market value, according to Reuters.
Who is and what is the personal fortune of Gautam Adani
The businessman dropped out of school and in recent years his fortune has grown exponentially, at the rate of the shares of his companies. He is director of Adani Groupa conglomerate made up of seven companies that control much of India’s transport, infrastructure and energy. In addition, it is the operator of the largest private ports and airports in the subcontinent. As if that were not enough, the company also has a larger stake in the distribution of gas and coal.
Earlier this year, the 60-year-old tycoon was the world’s third-richest person, but his net worth has shrunk by $64.6 billion, according to the forbes indexwhere it has fallen to 17th place.
Gautam Adani he had a fortune of 121,000 billion dollars until December 31, 2022, according to data from Bloomberg. But, according to the same index, the businessman now has ‘only’ 72.100 billion dollars and fell to 13th place at the time of publishing this note.
Although he remains enormously wealthy and maintains good political connections, he has lost more than a quarter of his wealth in recent days. Due to the controversies and the collapse of his companies, he now faces perhaps the biggest challenge of his career.
Gautam Adani’s fortune and the shares of his companies continue to fluctuate all the time, so we don’t know what will happen in the next few days or even in the next few hours, but we will be watching.
Mariel Otero Journalist passionate about fashion, the world of beauty and the source of lifestyle. Lover of stories worth telling, series, movies and sagas. Cheesy and closet geek.