NEW DELHI: Billionaire business tycoon Gautam Adani has become the richest person in Asia, beating Reliance Industries Ltd’s Mukesh Ambani according to the latest tally of Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Gautam Adani is the chairman and founder of conglomerate Adani Group.
Adani, who now ranks among the top 10 wealthiest persons in the world, has a net worth of $88.5 billion, about $600 million higher than Mukesh Ambani’s net worth.
Gautam Adani’s wealth increased by about $12 billion year-to-date, while Mukesh Ambani’s wealth saw a YTD fall of about $2.07 billion.
To be sure, Mukesh Ambani is currently the second richest person in India as well as Asia, and is the eleventh richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg’s tally of the top 500 richest people in the world.
As of February 8, Ambani’s total net worth is $87.9 billion.
His Adani Group controls the port of Mundra, India’s largest, in the mogul’s home state of Gujarat and he also owns 74 per cent of Mumbai international airport.
But his push into 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 report said.
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.