India's Gautam Adani is now world's third richest person

Surpassing Louis Vuitton's Bernard Arnault, Indian industrialist Gautam Adani is now the third-richest man in the world, becoming the first Asian to reach the top three.

Just behind Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, Adani's net worth is now $137 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Arnault stands at $136 billion.

Indian Industrialist has seen his net worth more than double to $137.4 billion in the last year, rising 20 spots on the index.

Adani, who was already crowned as Asia's richest man, is the first-ever Asian to break into the top three of the world's wealthiest people.

The self-made billionaire is the owner of the Adani Group which is the third largest conglomerate in India followed by Reliance Industries and Tata Group.

Born in the city of Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat to a middle-class family, Adani dropped out of college to work briefly in the diamond industry before starting his export business in 1988.

In 1995, he won a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port at Mundra in Gujarat, which has since grown to become India’s largest port. At the same time, Adani expanded into thermal power generation and coal mining in India and overseas.

The business tycoon has his hands in multiple industries like green energy, airports, and gas. The group now aims to step into the telecom space. Adani, 60, made his fortune in ports and commodities trading and now operates India’s third-largest conglomerate with interests ranging from coal mining and edible oils to airports and news media.

His ballooning net worth reflects a stratospheric rise in the market capitalisation of his publicly listed companies, as investors back the Adani Group’s aggressive expansion of old and new businesses.

Shares in the flagship Adani Enterprises — of which the billionaire owns 75 per cent — have soared more than 2,400pc since March 2020, and doubled in value in the past six months. Stock price surges in other group companies including Adani Transmission, Adani Power, Adani Ports and Adani Green Energy have catapulted Adani past fellow Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani.

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In recent years, the conglomerate has forayed into petrochemicals, cement, data centres and copper refining, in addition to establishing a renewable energy business with ambitious targets.

Recent investments in Indian news media and a bid for 5G airwaves this year have raised speculation that the billionaire’s empire could soon impinge on sectors dominated by Ambani’s Reliance Industries.