Gautam Adani

Gautam Shantilal Adani (born 24 June 1962) is an Indian billionaire industrialist who is the chairman and founder of Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate involved in port development and operations in India. He is also the president of Adani Foundation. As of December 2022, with a net worth of US$138.1 billion according to ''Forbes'' and $133 billion according to Bloomberg, Adani is the richest person in Asia and the third richest person in the world.

Early life

Adani was born on 24 June 1962 in a Jain family to Shantilal Adani (father) and Shantaben Adani (mother) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He has 7 siblings. His parents had migrated from the town of Tharad in the northern part of Gujarat. His father was a small textile merchant. He was educated at Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya school in Ahmedabad. He enrolled for a bachelor's degree in commerce at Gujarat University, but dropped out after the second year. Adani was keen on business, but not his father's textile business.

Career

As a teenager, Adani moved to Mumbai in 1978 to work as a diamond sorter for Mahendra Brothers.

In 1981, his elder brother Mahasukhbhai Adani bought a plastics unit in Ahmedabad and invited him to manage the operations. This venture turned out to be Adani's gateway to global trading through polyvinyl chloride (PVC) imports.

In 1985, he started importing primary polymers for small-scale industries In 1988, Adani established Adani Exports, now known as Adani Enterprises, the holding company of the Adani Group. Originally, the company dealt in agricultural and power commodities.

In 1991, the economic liberalization policies turned out to be favorable for his company and he started expanding the businesses into trading of metals, textiles, and agro products.

In 1994, the Government of Gujarat announced managerial outsourcing of the Mundra Port and in 1995, Adani got the contract.

In 1995, he set up the first jetty. Originally operated by Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone, the operations were transferred to Adani Ports & SEZ (APSEZ). Today, the company is the largest private multi-port operator. Mundra Port is the largest private sector port in India, with the capacity of handling close to 210 million tons of cargo per annum.

In 1996, the power business arm of the Adani Group, Adani Power, was founded by Adani. Adani Power holds thermal power plants with a capacity of 4620MW, the largest private thermal power producer of the country.

In 2006, Adani entered the power generation business. From 2009 to 2012, he acquired Abbot Point Port in Australia and Carmichael coal mine in Queensland.

In May 2020, Adani won the world's largest solar bid by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) worth US$6 billion. The 8000MW photovoltaic power plant project will be taken up by Adani Green; Adani Solar will establish 2000MW of additional solar cell and module manufacturing capacity.

In September 2020, Adani acquired a 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport, India's second busiest after Delhi.

In November 2021, while speaking at the Bloomberg India Economic Forum, Adani said the group is investing US$70 billion in a new green energy business. In July 2022, he offered new details on how this investment will be utilized to build three giant factories – solar, electrolyzer (to make green hydrogen), wind turbine plants.

In February 2022, he became Asia's richest person, surpassing Mukesh Ambani. In August 2022, he was named the 3rd richest person in the world by Fortune.

In May 2022, Adani family acquired Ambuja Cements and its subsidiary ACC from Holcim Group for $10.5 billion, through an overseas special-purpose entity.

In August 2022, AMG Media Networks Limited (AMNL), a unit of Adani Group, declared that it planned to buy RRPR Holding, owner of 29.18% of national news broadcaster NDTV, and made an open offer to buy a further 26%. In a statement, NDTV said that Adani acquired his stake via a third party without informing the company's founders, former journalist Radhika Roy and her economist husband Prannoy Roy, and that the deal was done “without discussion, consent or notice.” This bid also raised concern regarding editorial independence in India, since Adani is considered to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Political views

Adani has been described as being close to former chief Minister of Gujarat and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. This has led to allegations of cronyism as his firms have won many Indian energy and infrastructure government contracts. With an Indian government auditor accusing Modi in 2012 of giving low cost fuel from a Gujarat state-run gas company to Adani and other businesspeople. Adani and Modi have both denied allegations of cronyism.

Personal life

Gautam Adani is married to Priti Adani. The couple have two sons, Karan Adani and Jeet Adani. on January 1, 1998, Adani and an associate Shantilal Patel were allegedly abducted and held hostage for ransom, but were released without collecting the money. Two former gangsters Fazl-ur-Rehman and Bhogilal Darji, who were accused of the kidnapping were later acquitted in an Indian court in 2018 after Adani and Patel did not show up for depositions despite multiple summons by the court.

He was in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Philanthropy

Adani is the owner of the Adani Foundation, funded through the Adani Group. It was founded in 1996. Other than Gujarat, the organisation operates in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.

In March 2020, he contributed to the PM Cares Fund through his group's philanthropy arm, to fight the Coronavirus outbreak. A contribution of was made to the Gujarat CM Relief Fund and to the Maharashtra CM Relief Fund.

Adani led diversified conglomerate Adani Group imported four ISO cryogenic tanks filled with 80 metric tonnes of liquid medical oxygen from Dammam in Saudi Arabia to Mundra in Gujarat. The group also secured 5,000 medical-grade oxygen cylinders from Linde Saudi Arabia. In a Twitter post, Adani shared that each day his group is supplying 1,500 cylinders with medical oxygen to wherever they are needed in the Kutch district of Gujarat.
In June 2022, Adani has committed to donate Rs 60,000 crore ($7.7 billion) to social causes. Adani's corpus will be administered by the Adani Foundation, making it one of the biggest transfers to a philanthropic trust in India.

References

External links

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Adani Foundation

Adani Realty

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Adani, Gautam
Living people
Gujarati people
1962 births
Businesspeople from Ahmedabad
Indian billionaires
Adani Group
Gautam
Indian Jains
21st-century Indian Jains
Indian commodities traders