Meet Gautam Adani: Indicted by Hindenburg in ‘biggest scam in corporate history’

Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man, suddenly found himself at the center of a firestorm on Wednesday after prominent short-selling company Hindenburg Research said his business empire in India was built through fraud.

Adani, 60, experienced a surge in personal wealth last year even as the global economy went through a period of slowdown.

He is the chairman of the Adani Group, a massive $21 billion conglomerate that owns many of India’s airports, the country’s largest private port, media giant New Delhi Television, and many other holdings.

A college dropout, Adani began his career in the diamond industry before joining a plastics factory run by his brother, according to the Financial Times.

Ultimately, Adani created his own company, which started as an import-export operation in the commodity sector and gradually expanded to other initiatives.

A biography on the Adani Group’s website describes its namesake founder as a “first-generation entrepreneur” who focuses on “nation-building” through infrastructure development. He is married and has two sons, Karan and Jeet.

“For Mr. Adani, nation building means transforming India’s coastline by building a series of ports and logistics hubs,” the biography reads. “For him, nation-building also means strengthening the country’s energy security and bridging the gap between urban and rural areas by providing electricity to the several hundred million people living in India’s hinterland.”

According to the BBC and other sources, in addition to his high-profile business career, Adani also survived the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and a kidnapping and ransom attempt in 1998.

Adani faced his fair share of criticism during his rise to international wealth and fame. Critics have scrutinized his close relationship and support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The industrialist is so well connected in political circles in India that he is called “Rockefeller Modi”.

Adani was an early supporter of the Modi Bharatiya Janata party. In 2014, Modi reportedly flew to the capital New Delhi in Adani’s private jet to take over as prime minister.

According to Bloomberg, his fortune has skyrocketed since Modi came to power, rising from about $5 billion in 2014 to a whopping $121 billion at the end of 2022.

During this period, the Adani Group received various government contracts and infrastructure projects, according to the Financial Times.

“I can tell you that Modi doesn’t help anyone directly,” Adani told the Financial Times in 2013. “Modi helps industries through politics and doesn’t allow any bullshit in the system.”

Adani’s net worth soared $44 billion last year – more than any other person tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index – when he outpaced the likes of Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett.

But the Adani Group empire is facing an unprecedented scrutiny after Hindenburg — the powerful firm that previously prosecuted electric vehicles Nikola and Lordstown Motors — said it “uncovered evidence of blatant accounting fraud, share fraud and money laundering at Adani that took place over the course of decades.”

“Adani has accomplished this gigantic feat with the help of government aides and the home-based businesses of international companies that are facilitating this activity,” Hindenburg said in a lengthy note to clients about his findings.

Hindenburg noted that the Adani Group faced at least “four major government fraud investigations” and noted that “8 of the 22 key executives are members of the Adani family.”

Shares controlled by Adani lost about $12 billion in value after the Hindenburg allegations surfaced.

After the revealing report of the Hindenburg, Forbes ranked Adani as the fourth richest person in the world with a fortune of $119.1 billion, behind billionaires Bernard Arno, Elon Musk and Bezos. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index also placed Adani as the fourth richest person, with a net worth of $119 billion.

Adani Group denied the allegations in a statement from its chief financial officer, Jugeshinder Singh.

“We are shocked that Hindenburg Research released the report on January 24, 2023 without making any attempt to contact us or verify the actual matrix,” Singh said. “The report is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and outdated, baseless and discredited claims that have been tested and rejected by India’s highest courts.”