Gautam Adani joins $100-billion club

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has entered the centibillionaires club — businessmen having a fortune of $100 billion or more.

The Gujarat-based tycoon's wealth surged about $24 billion this year, making him the biggest gainer year-to-date, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Adani has also become the richest person in Asia, overtaking Reliance Industries' chairman Mukesh Ambani who entered the $100 billion club in October last year.

The 59-year-old founder of Adani Group made most of his fortune in the past two years after betting on green energy. He joins nine other businessmen in the centibillionaires club, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

According to Forbers' real-time billionaires list, Gautam Adani and his family have a networth of $107 billion, $6 billion more than Ambani.

The conglomerate that Adani controls owns companies ranging from ports to power. Shares of the group's recently listed FMCG giant Adani Wilmar — a 50:50 joint venture with Singapore-based Wilmar International — have surged 105% since listing about two months ago.

Adani initially made his fortune in the coal industry, first as a trader and then a builder of India's largest thermal power capacity in the private sector.

As the government decided to dump fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy, Adani quickly joined the green energy bandwagon and now his conglomerate is on its way to becoming the largest solar power producer in the world.

The group plans to spend 75% capital expenditure in green businesses, including $20 billion in renewables, green component manufacturing and enabling infrastructure, over the next decade.

Adani Green Energy, world's largest solar power developer, plans to build 45GW renewable capacity by 2030. In October, it completed the largest M&A in India's renewable space by acquiring SB Energy, an 80:20 joint venture between Japan-based SoftBank Group and Bharti Group, for ₹26,000 crore.

At Mundra, the Adani group has built India's largest commercial port over the last two decades. Adani has 12 other ports and terminals. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. (APSEZ) is India's largest commercial port operator and integrated logistics player with capacity of 498 million metric tonnes annum (MMTPA). It has a 28.6% share of all-India container movement.

In transmission and distribution, Adani Transmission is already India's largest private utility with more than 18,300 circuit kms and 33,100 MVA transformation capacity, covering 12 states with over three crore connections.

Adani has a joint venture with IOC, Indian Oil-Adani Gas, which is implementing city gas distribution CGD networks in 19 cities. In October 2020, the group sold 37.4% stake in Adani Gas to French energy giant Total for ₹5,700 crore — the largest FDI in the country's city gas distribution.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the National Hydrogen Mission in August 2021, Adani decided to tap the hydrogen opportunity, too.

Last month, the Adani group said it will acquire a minority stake in Quintillion Business Media, the parent of business news platform BloombergQuint.