Left college studies in the middle and became the second richest person in the world today, take a look at Adani Empire

Adani Group, an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Ahmedabad, was founded by Gautam Adani in 1988 as a commodity trading business, with the flagship company Adani Enterprises. The group’s diversified businesses include port management, electric power generation and transmission, renewable energy, mining, airport operations, natural gas, food processing and infrastructure. With operations in 70 locations in 50 countries, the group has annual revenues of over US$20 billion.

Recently, Adani Group’s Chairperson and Indian billionare Gautam Adani surpassed Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to become the world’s second richest person. He is now only behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who remains the world’s richest person with a net worth of $273.5 billion.

Gautam Adani, the founder of the Adani Empire, had left his studies midway. Adani dreamed big from the very beginning. During his school days he once visited Kandla Port in Gujarat. Seeing the view there, he had decided that he too would make something similar or even bigger in his life. Today Adani Group has several ports. Gautam Adani became a millionaire at the age of 20. He himself earned this money. Gautam Adani was born in a textile business family. But he was not interested in the family business. He worked as a diamond broker in Mumbai and earned a million in just three years.

Adani Exports Limited started as a commodity trading firm in 1988 and diversified into import and export of multi-basket commodities. With a capital of ₹5 lakh, the company was set up as a partnership firm with the flagship company, Adani Enterprises, formerly Adani Exports.

In 1990 the Adani Group developed its port at Mundra to provide a base for its business operations. The group’s second phase began with the creation of large infrastructure assets. The company established a portfolio of ports, power plants, mines, ships and railway lines in and out of India.

Adani handled 4 million tonnes of cargo at Mundra in 2002, becoming India’s largest private port. Later in 2006, the company became the largest coal importer in India with 11 million tonnes of coal handling. The company expanded its business in 2008 by purchasing the Bunyu Mine in Indonesia, which has 180 million tonnes of coal reserves. In 2009 the firm started producing 330 MW of thermal power. Adani Enterprises became India’s largest coal importer with 60% market share.

Adani Power emerged as India’s largest private power producer in 2014. The total installed capacity of Adani Power then was 9,280 MW. On 16 May of the same year, Adani Ports acquired Dhamra Port on the east coast of India for ₹5,500 crore.

In 2015 Adani Renewable Energy Park of the Adani Group signed an agreement with the Government of Rajasthan for a 50:50 joint venture to set up India’s largest solar park with a capacity of 10,000 MW. In April 2016, Adani Enterprises received approval from the Government of Gujarat to start work on the construction of a solar power equipment plant. In December, the Adani Group inaugurated a 100 MW solar power plant in Bathinda, the largest in Punjab.

On 22 December 2017, Adani Group acquired the power unit of Reliance Infrastructure for Rs 18,800 crore. In October 2019, French oil and gas company TotalEnergies bought a 37.4% stake in Adani Gas for ₹6,155 crore.

In August 2020, Adani Group acquired a majority stake in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai airports after entering into a debt takeover agreement with GVK Group. In May 2021, Adani Green Energy acquired SB Energy, a joint venture of SoftBank Group and Bharti Enterprises, for US$3.5 billion. In June 2022, TotalEnergies acquired a 25% stake in Adani New Industries, the newly formed green hydrogen subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, for US$12.5 billion.

Negotiation skills of Gautam Adani are tremendous. He had completed the deal worth Rs 6,000 crore in just 100 hours. With this deal, he got the Udupi Thermal Power Plant.

Gautam Adani was once kidnapped. In the year 1998, news about his wealth was published in the newspapers. He was then kidnapped by underworld don Fazlu Rahman for a ransom of $1.5 million.

Gautam Adani escaped from death in Mumbai attacks. Gautam Adani was having dinner at Taj Hotel Mumbai on 26 November 2008. There was a terrorist attack on the hotel that day. Adani hid in the basement along with other guests. Adani had told that he had seen death only from a distance of 15 feet.

Notable subsidiaries and jointly-controlled companies of Adani Enterprises include: Adani Agri Fresh, Adani Airport Holdings, Adani Cement, AdaniConneX, Adani Defence & Aerospace, Adani Mining, Adani New Industries, Adani Road Transport, Adani Solar, Adani Water, Adani Welspun Exploration, Adani Wilmar and AMG Media Networks.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) Limited won the Emerging Company of the year 2014 at the Economic Times awards.

In 2015, Adani was ranked India’s most trusted infrastructure brand by The Brand Trust Report 2015.

Adani Ports & SEZ (APSEZ) won the “Non-Major Port of the Year 2015” by the All Time Maritime and Logistics Award (MALA) and received “India’s Container Port of the Year 2016” in Mumbai.

In January 2018, Adani Green Energy Limited, a division of Adani Group, entered into the global top 15 list of solar power developers by GTM Research, the market analysis and consulting arm of Greentech Media.

Adani Power’s Udupi Power Plant has been conferred with the Power Award by the Government of Karnataka.