Gautam Adani, the richest man in Asia and India, had a significant decline in his fortune on Friday, as he dropped to seventh place on the global rich list.
Adani’s wealth decreased by more than $22.5 billion to $96.8 billion over the day, based on the Forbes Real Times Billionaire Index. On the rich list, Bill Gates, whose net worth was estimated to be $104.1 billion, is now ranked above Adani.
When Group Stock prices experienced a significant rally last year, Adani climbed to the second spot on the rich list. He held on to the third place for a while before being recently supplanted by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($122 billion). With a fortune of $216.1 billion, Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter) is second on the rich list behind Bernard Arnault (Louis Vuitton) and family. Elon Musk’s net worth was previously estimated at $170.1 billion.
Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of RIL and Adani’s business rival, came in at number 11 on the rich list with an estimated wealth of $83.6 billion. As the conflict between the Adani Group and the US-based activist investor group Hindenburg Research heated up on Thursday, Gautam Adani’s position on the rich list dropped.
Share prices of Adani Group companies also dropped by up to 20% on Friday. Adani’s detailed responses to Hindenburg’s inquiries also don’t appear to have offered any solace to the Group’s listed stocks. In a report released on January 24, Hinderburg Research accused Adani of manipulating the stock market, labelled the share prices of its seven publicly traded firms as “overvalued,” and questioned the involvement of close relatives, among other grave accusations.
Adani Group has labelled these accusations as “malicious” and stated that it is considering suing Hindenburg. Adani Total Gas’ share price plunged 20% on Friday to a low of Rs 2,934 on the BSE, while Adani Green’s stock price dropped 19% to a low of Rs 1,488. Adani Transmission sank over 17%, while Adani Power and Adani Wilmar hit a lower circuit of 5%.
Shares of the group’s main company Adani Enterprises were down over 8%, while those of Adani Ports(APSEZ) were down 10% to set a new 52-week low. On Friday, there was significant selling pressure on other Adani equities as well. At the start of Friday’s trading hours, the market value of the Group had fallen by nearly Rs 2 lakh crore. The market value of the Group had decreased by almost Rs 97,000 crore on Wednesday.
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