Billionaire Gautam Adani has edged past Chinese tycoon Zhong Shanshan to become the second-richest Asian, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, as the stock prices of his listed companies soared.
The Adani Group chief’s net worth, as per the index, stood at $66.5 billion against Zhong Shanshan’s $63.6 billion. Adani now stands only behind his Indian competitor and head of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mukesh Ambani, in terms of most wealth owned by an individual in Asia.
Adani’s wealth has grown manifold in the recent few years, especially after the blockbuster performance of his renewable energy company, Adani Green, on Indian bourses.
His other companies such as Adani Enterprises, Adani Gas and Adani Transmission are also performing really well, thanks to key contracts that were signed last year and early this year. Amid the pandemic, Adani’s net worth grew by $32.7 billion in 2020.
In the last year, share prices of Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises have surged by 617% and 827%, respectively, according to a report by Livemint. Meanwhile, Adani Total Gas has jumped 1,145% in the last year.
Gautam Adani family owns around 72 per stake in the group companies on average, while the Mukesh Ambani family owns around 50 per cent stake in RIL. Other group listed companies, such as TV18 group, DEN Network, and Hathway Cable are subsidiaries of Reliance Industries.
Adani Group companies have been among the biggest benefeciaries of the post-pandemic rally on the bourses, seeing a jump of about 6.5 times in m-cap since March 2020, against a 68 per cent rise in Sensex and 78 per cent rise in RIL.
