NEW DELHI (AP) — Asia’s richest man, Gautam Adani, saw his companies shed $68 billion in market value after short-selling firm Hindenburg Research accused him of “pulling the largest con in corporate history,” triggering a massive sell-off of Adani stocks.
The report by from U.S.-based Hindenburg about India’s second-largest conglomerate accused it of stock price manipulation and fraud just as the group began a share offering meant to raise $2.5 billion.
Adani, 60, has since slid from a ranking of being the world’s third richest man to the 11th, as his net worth shrank more than $30 billion to an estimated $84 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
WHO IS GAUTAM ADANI?
Son of a middle class family in Ahmedabad in western India’s Gujarat state, Adani quit college to become a diamond trader in Mumbai, India’s financial capital. In the 1980s, he started importing plastics before establishing Adani Enterprises, which traded in everything from shoes to buckets and remains his flagship company.
India opened up its economy in the 1990s and a new middle class emerged as tens of millions of people escaped poverty and the economy boomed, prompting Adani to bet on infrastructure and coal.
Adani’s first big project, the Mundra port in Gujarat, opened in 1998 and is now India’s largest. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. is India’s biggest private port operator. Within a decade, Adani became India’s largest developer and operator of coal mines. It has expanded to Australia and Indonesia and, according to Adani Power’s website, is on track to be “one of the largest mining groups in the world.”
Adani companies operate airports in major cities, build roads, generate electricity, manufacture defense equipment, develop agricultural drones, sell cooking oil and run a media outlet. Despite his fossil fuel roots, the billionaire’s Adani Green aims become the world’s largest renewable energy player by 2030.
HOW ADANI BECAME ASIA’S RICHEST MAN
Adani’s net worth shot up about 2,000% in recent years as share prices for his listed companies soared.
His critics say much of his success stems from his close ties to the government and to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has at times campaigned using an Adani jet. They have accused the government of adjusting bidding rules to make it easier for Adani to win contracts to operate airports, for example. The company denies this, saying contracts were won fairly through a transparent process.
Before Modi took office, Adani was friendly with the rival Congress Party, which governed Gujarat state when many of his early projects began. Adani has been “close to every politician in power,” R N Bhaskar, a journalist who wrote a biography on Adani, told The Associated Press.
Adani’s supporters say he has cleverly aligned …….
