Indian coal pot Gautam Adani ranked as the third richest in the world this year by the financial media On Bloomberg’s billionaire list (you will switch to another service).
He is the first Asian to be among the top three richest people in the world.
In Finland, Adani’s name has rarely appeared in news headlines.
His rate of rise has been dizzying.
According to Bloomberg, Adani’s assets were around 10 billion dollars at the beginning of 2020, while in December it was already more than 125 billion dollars.
The increase was due to the rapid increase in the market value of the listed companies belonging to his group of companies.
Now the coal-fired power plant is aiming to become the world’s largest producer of renewable energy by 2030. At the same time, he is buying independent Indian media.
Recently, Gautam Adani’s name has also popped up in other significant international financial news.
This story tells what kind of man Adani, who avoids publicity, is.
Stopped studies and survived a terrorist attack
Adani began amassing its huge fortune in coal when fast-growing and energy-hungry India began to liberalize its economy in the 1990s.
Adani built the port at Mundra in the western state of Gujarat. Through it, coal started flowing into India and at the same time rupees flowed into Adani’s coffers.
Gautam Adani comes from a middle-class family of textile merchants. The family is Jain by religion.
Adani dropped out of school at a young age and moved to India’s financial hub, Mumbai. There he started his business career trading diamonds.
After a couple of years, Adani returned home to Gujarat and joined his brother’s plastics business in bread. In 1988, he founded his own company, which traded in various products from shoes to buckets.
Adani’s taipale also accommodates dangerous situations. For example, in November 2008, he was at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai when terrorists attacked it. The billionaire hid from the terrorists in the basement together with others.
Coal at the center of business
Today, 60-year-old Gautam Adani serves as the chairman of the board of the multinational company Adani Group, which he founded.
More than 60 percent of Adani Group’s income comes from the coal business. Adani owns coal power plants and mines and imports about a quarter of the coal coming to India, says The Washington Post (you are moving to another service).
Adani Group also operates in the energy, port, defense, agriculture and food sectors, as well as in the technology side such as the data center and drone business.
The company owns, among other things, several ports and operates airports. Currently, the Adani Group is building a major port at Vizhinjam in the state of Kerala.
The new port is expected to become a challenger to the ports of Dubai, Singapore and Sri Lanka, says The Guardian (you are switching to another service).
Close relationship with PM Modi
Gautam Adani is adept at creating and nurturing relationships with those in power.
He has been on good terms with both the current and previous ruling parties, the Indian People’s Party (BJP) and the Indian Congress Party (INC).
Opposition politicians argue that Adani benefits from a close relationship with the current prime minister To Narendra Modi.
Modi, like Adani, hails from Gujarat. The men met in the 1990s, reports The Washington Post. Modi was the general secretary of the Hindu nationalist BJP at the time.
Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat state in 2001. A former aide to Modi told The Washington Post that Modi was greatly impressed by the Adani port and rail projects.
In 2007, the state of Gujarat sold land to Adani at a low price and established a special economic zone there, within which companies operating enjoy tax benefits. According to the BJP, the purpose was to promote the development of the region.
Adani built a coal-fired power plant in the special economic zone. Foreign coal was brought there from the Adani port along the Adani railway. This is how pohata became an electricity producer, writes The Washington Post.
Modi has occasionally used a private jet owned by Adani for his election tours.
Adani’s companies have won contracts worth billions of dollars to build ports, highways and power plants, for example.
For the Financial Times (you will switch to another service) in a rare interview, Adani said he had not abused his position.
According to the billionaire, his companies adapt to the government’s development goals.
The Indian government needs committee members like Adani to achieve national goals and as partners of the private sector in strategic projects outside India, an economist told news agency AP Mihir Sharma.
– It’s not like Adani Group is changing the government’s policy. Rather, Adani Group is a willing and able partner on the issues that the government considers most important, Sharma told AP.
“Adani strives to join the influencers”
Gautam Adani recognized the potential of renewable energy early on, even though he amassed his vast fortune through coal and heavy industry.
This is the opinion of the director of the Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance Tim Buckley news agency for AP.
India has announced that it aims to produce half of its energy from renewable sources by 2030, and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.
Read more: You have to dig coal – went to India to find out what the future of the country’s energy production looks like
In September, Adani announced that it would invest $70 billion in various renewable energy projects over the next decade. He aims to become the world’s largest producer of renewable energy.
The Pohatan company has recently received almost 90 million dollars in government support for the production of solar panels.
– I don’t think Gautam Adani is thinking about climate science. But he understands India’s geopolitical and economic goals and puts himself in a position where he can solve problems for his own benefit and for India’s benefit, Buckley told AP.
Buckley believes that Adani is striving Bill Gates and Elon Musk’s to the group of wealthy influencers like
– He can only do that by being a credible global billionaire and not just the biggest fish in the Indian market. He wants Adani Green to be his legacy.
Adani Green is the renewable energy arm of the billionaire’s conglomerate. Among other things, it operates one of the world’s largest solar power parks, located in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India.
Gautam Adani’s renewable energy projects are not limited to India. In October, Adani announced plans to build a huge wind and solar farm in Morocco. It is intended to produce renewable energy for Europe, among others.
News channel taken over, slum anew
Soon, Gautam Adani is also becoming a media sensation.
In the fall, it was reported that he is trying to acquire a majority stake in New Delhi Television, or NDTV, which is called India’s most prestigious television news channel.
Adani Group has already become the largest single owner of the media company.
NDTV has been regarded as the last critical voice in Indian television. Some journalists are worried that the watchdog of power, owned by Adani, which is close to Prime Minister Modi, is losing its teeth.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Adani stated that there is no media in India comparable to the Financial Times or al-Jazeera.
– Why can’t one media house be supported so that it becomes independent and has a global impact, he asked in an interview with FT.
According to Adani, the independence of the media house means that if the government has done something wrong, it must be said out loud.
– But at the same time, you have to have the courage to also tell if the government is doing the right things, Adani told FT.
At the end of November, Adani Group won the public tender for the redevelopment project of Dharavi, India’s largest slum.
Dharavi is centrally located in Mumbai with a population of 20 million. In place of the slum, it is planned to build, among other things, tower blocks and business premises.
With the development of Dharavi, Adani gets to leave his handprint in India’s “city of dreams”.
You can discuss the topic on Wed 14.12. until 11 p.m.
Sources: AP, Reuters