Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries, and Gautam Adani, founder of the Adani Group, have dropped out of the elite $100 billion club, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This comes as both Ambani and Adani have faced challenges that hit their businesses as well as their personal wealth.
Ambani’s energy and retail businesses have underperformed, and there has been investor concern about debt as well. According to Bloomberg, Ambani’s wealth peaked at about $120.8 billion in July, around the time the Ambanis hosted the $600-million Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding.
The country’s richest man is banking on the strategic shift to focus more on digital platforms, retail brands, and renewable energy to propel the conglomerate’s growth, as per the report. But sales and profit growth have slowed down at the retail business.
Meanwhile, Adani has been embroiled in regulatory issues. The empire was recently rocked by a US Department of Justice probe that accused the company of alleged bribery. They accused Gautam Adani, his nephew and executive director Sagar Adani and managing director of AGEL, Vneet S Jaain, of being part of a scheme to pay bribes to secure Indian power supply contracts and misleading US investors. This is the second huge blow to the conglomerate that has been trying to shore up investor confidence after Hindenburg Research accused the group of financial misdeeds.
Adani, whose fortune peaked at $122.3 billion in June, has denied all the charges, and vowed to fight on. He had bolstered his finances after the Hindenburg attack but the US allegations took a toll anew.
Reliance shares slipped 3.43 per cent in 2024 so far as against an 11.93 per cent rise in benchmark BSE Sensex, while Adani Group stocks too came under severe selling pressure after the allegations by the US authorities.