Adani overtakes Ambani to become Asia’s richest

INDIA’s Gautam Adani has become Asia’s richest person with a fortune of $90 billion, overtaking fellow countryman Mukesh Ambani, Forbes said.

Adani’s investments in green energy in India helped him to enter the top 10 of the world’s richest people, according to figures from Forbes and Bloomberg.

He is the tenth richest in the world.

Adani’s fortune has doubled since April 2021, Forbes added, estimating his wealth last year at $50.5 bn.

Ambani was ranked 11th on the list, with an estimated wealth of $89.2 billion.

Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires rankings look at the daily ups and downs of the world’s wealthiest people.

According to the report, the Adani Group head overtook Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who slipped down the table several places last week after losing $30bn of his personal fortune, to reach the top 10.

Zuckerberg lost $29 billion in net worth last Thursday as Meta Platforms Inc's stock marked a record one-day plunge, while fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos was set to add $20 billion to his personal valuation after Amazon's blockbuster earnings.

Meta's stock fell 26 per cent, erasing more than $200 billion in the biggest ever single-day market value wipeout for a US company. That pulled down founder and chief executive officer Zuckerberg's net worth to $85 billion, according to Forbes.

Bezos' net worth rose 57 per cent to $177 billion in 2021 from a year earlier, according to Forbes, largely from Amazon's boom during the pandemic when people were highly dependent on online shopping.

Adani has become the face of big coal around the world with its Carmichael mine project in Australia.

His group also controls the port of Mundra, India’s largest, in his home state of Gujarat and he also owns 74 per cent of Mumbai international airport.

Reports said the investment in green energy has paid off handsomely in the past year with the listed company Adani Green Energy now his most valuable after its share price almost doubled in the past 12 months.

The group is in the process of ploughing $70bn into green energy projects by 2030 with the aim of becoming the world’s largest renewable energy producer, one report said.

India plans to reach a target of 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030 and has an aim for 50 per cent of electricity capacity to be generated from renewables by the same point. It plans to be net-zero by 2070.

Overseas investors in Adani and India’s solar revolution include the French oil company Total, which last year bought 20 per cent of Adani Green Energy for $2.5bn.

Adani’s company is pressing ahead with the giant Queensland mine in the face of resistance from a rainbow coalition of anti-fossil fuel activists, biodiversity conservationists and indigenous groups.