Adani Group founder Gautam Adani has overtaken Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani to become the richest man in India for the first time with a wealth of £109 billion (nearly $140 billion), according to the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022.
The list shows that Adani’s wealth more than doubled, growing 116%, in just one year, while Ambani’s wealth grew 11% to £79 billion (about $99 billion). In absolute terms, Adani’s wealth grew by £59 billion. In early February this year, Adani had pipped Ambani as the richest Indian first on the Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index.
Adding £160 million per day over the last year, and with a wealth of £109 billion, Adani's net worth is now £30 billion more than Ambani's.
Briskly expanding his commodity trading company into a coal–to–port-to-energy conglomerate, Adani is the only Indian to have built not one, but seven companies with a market cap of £10 billion. After holding on to the richest Indian tag for 10 years, Ambani has now fallen to the second position in this year’s list with a wealth of £79.4 billion. Despite being dethroned from the first position, Ambani’s wealth grew 11% last year as he added £21 million to his wealth every day during the period, making him the second-best performer after Adani. Together, Adani and Ambani account for 59% of the total wealth of the top ten richest people in India.
In 2012, Adani’s wealth was hardly one-sixth of Ambani’s wealth. Ten years later, Adani has surpassed Ambani to become the richest man in India. For some more perspective, last year, Ambani was ahead of Adani’s wealth by £10 billion, and in just one year, Adani has beaten Ambani by £30 billion. “Adani has interests in power, port, renewables and energy. Ambani, who is in the second rank is in telecom and petrochemicals. Cyrus Poonawalla, who is at the third spot is the vaccine king of the world. Then there are pharma, retail, and financial services in the top 10. These entrepreneurs are the global leaders in their respective sectors,” the Hurun report said.
