Adani Group has reached out to potential candidates for the job as Asia's richest man is looking to expedite its dealmaking.
Adani has been aggressively diversifying his empire beyond coal, where he built his fortune, and into sectors including data centers, airports, digital services, media, and health care. The group now owns India’s largest private-sector port and airport operator, city-gas distributor, and coal miner.
The business tycoon recently lodged a hostile takeover of New Delhi Television Ltd. Adani Group acquired a 29.2% stake in news media firm, New Delhi Television Ltd. or NDTV, and offered to buy another 26% from the open market, as the conglomerate seeks to expand its footprint in India’s media sector.
The billionaire also agreed to buy Holcim AG’s cement business in India in a $10.5 billion deal. He’s also pledged to invest $70 billion in green energy this year. The pivot to green energy and infrastructure has won investments from firms including Warburg Pincus and TotalEnergies SE, helping Adani enter the echelons previously dominated by US tech moguls. This breakneck growth, sometimes in unrelated sectors, is making some credit watchers wary about the group being too indebted and the management bandwidth getting too stretched across newer businesses.
With a $137.4 billion fortune, Adani became the world's third richest as per Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Gautam Adani has added $60.9 billion to his fortune in 2022 alone, five times more than anyone else. He first overtook Ambani as the richest Asian in February, became a centibillionaire in April, and surpassed Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates as the world’s fourth-richest person last month. Now, Adani has overtaken France’s Bernard Arnault and now trails just Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos of the US in the ranking.
(With Bloomberg inputs)
