According to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, Gautam Adani, Indian businessman and owner of Adani Group, has overtaken Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the world’s fourth richest person. On Thursday, Gautam Adani’s net worth jumped to $115.5 billion leaving behind Bill Gates whose fortunes are at $104.6 billion.
Mukesh Ambani, another Indian on the list, ranks 10th with $90 billion fortune.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, who’s been in the midst of controversy over his to buy micro-blogging website Twitter only to abandon it later, is on the 1st rank in the list with $235.8 billion.
When Mr Adani took over Mr Ambani as richest man in Asia, Bloomberg had reported: “Some of Adani Group’s listed stocks have soared more than 600% in the past two years on bets his push into green energy and infrastructure will pay off as PM Modi looks to revive the $2.9 trillion economy and meet India’s carbon net-zero target by 2070.”
“In barely three years, Adani has gained control of seven airports and almost a quarter of India’s air traffic. His group now owns the country’s largest airport operator, power generator and city gas retailer in the non-state sector,” Bloomberg added.
In another deal which’ll add to its fortunes, the Adani group on Thursday said it has won the tender for the privatisation of a port in Israel in partnership with Gadot.
Among Israel’s three major international seaports, the Port of Haifa is the largest one.
To begin its journey in communications sector, along with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, Adani Data Networks has also applied to participate in the upcoming 5G auction. Scheduled to begin on July 26, the spectrum auction is likely to see intense and aggressive bidding for some frequency bands, as two of the India’s richest businessmen will contest against each other.
It is in the race to acquire spectrum, the Adani group said on Saturday. The group said it will be used to create a private network to support its businesses from airports to power as well as data centres.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
