$34 bn stocks rout pulls Gautam Adani out of world's top-10 billionaires list

Asia's richest man Gautam Adani-controlled Adani group companies continued their losing streak on Tuesday, eroding nearly $34 billion in the cumulative stock values in the last three sessions. The recent slump in most Adani group shares following Hindenburg Research’s report on the Indian conglomerate, Gautam Adani is now out of the league of the world's 10 richest billionaires.

With a wealth of $84.4 billion, the 60-year-old billionaire is now the 11th richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bloomberg data shows that Adani has lost $36 billion of his wealth so far in January, including $34 billion in just three trading days. It is notable that the Ahmedabad-based business tycoon was the biggest wealth gainer in 2022 with an annual growth of around $40 billion. However, he seems to have eroded all his last year’s personal wealth gains in just four sessions after Hindenburg Research raised concerns about the group firms’ high debt levels and the use of tax havens.

Meanwhile, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries (RIL), continued to hold the 12th position in the world's richest billionaires list with a net worth of $82.2 billion after adding $809 million in the year-to-date period. Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, remained on the top position with a net worth of $189 billion, followed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at $160 billion, and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos at $124 billion.

Adani group companies have lost over one-fourth of their market capitalisation in the last four sessions even as the conglomerate released a 413-pager response to Hindenburg Research report that alleged that key listed Adani firms have taken on substantial debt, including pledging shares of their inflated stock for loans, putting the entire group on precarious financial footing.

The report comes amid the Adani group's plans to launch the country’s largest-ever FPO of ₹20,000 crore, which opened on January 27 and close on January 31. The company has fixed the floor price for the issue at ₹3,112-3,276 per share. The board also approved a discount of ₹64 per FPO equity share for retail individual investors. 

On Tuesday, shares of Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission, Adani Power and Adani Wilmar fell between 5% and 10% in intraday trade. Adani Total Gas also hit 10% lower circuit limit.  Bucking the trend, Adani Enterprises, Adani Port, and recently acquired cement entities, ACC and Ambuja Cement gained up to 4%.

Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of Adani group which launched FPO last week, was trading 3% higher at ₹2,956 levels. However, it stayed well below the offer price of the issue, which if successful will be the largest such share offering ever in India. So far, the secondary share sale has received a muted response from investors, with the issue subscribing by just 1% by Friday and 3% by Monday.