Gautam Adani out from the list of world's top ten billionaires

• Image Credit: Google

• Jan 31, 2023 | Dhupali Das

As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the wealth of Adani, who still holds Asia's richest man tag, fell by $8.21 billion to $84.4 billion in the last 24 hours...

Digital Desk: Having lost $36 billion of his wealth so far in January as a result of a rout in company share prices in the aftermath of the Hindenburg report, Gautam Adani has now lost his position in the elite club of the world's ten richest billionaires. 

The 60-year-old Ahmedabad-based Indian tycoon is now in the 11th slot on the rich list with a wealth of $84.4 billion, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Adani has seen the biggest wipeout among the top 500 richest people in the world so far in 2023.

Incidentally, Adani had been the greatest wealth gainer in 2022, with an annual gain of around $40 billion. However, he seems to have lost all of the gains he saw in his own wealth last year.

However, the college dropout remains the richest Indian, with Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani close behind him at No. 12.

Adani has been losing billions of dollars every trading day since New York-based short-seller Hindenburg Research produced a 32,000-word report last week alleging multiple frauds, malpractices, and stock manipulation.

According to Bloomberg data, Adani has lost $34 billion in the last three trading sessions, with his group companies losing more than one-fourth of their market capitalization.

Riding on the gravity-defying increase in the prices of stocks in his huge business stretching across ports, FMCG, mining, and energy, Adani briefly grabbed the No. 2 spot in the wealthy list last year, with only Elon Musk richer than him.

He currently lags behind eleven other billionaires, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Mukesh Ambani, with a wealth of $84.4 billion, trails him on the rich list at No. 12.

The loss in personal wealth, which is directly related to the pricing of Adani stocks, comes after investors dumped Adani stocks following the Hindenburg report.

Adani Group has raised issues about the motive behind the report and said it is a case of unethical short selling by a foreign business by producing a report to manipulate and lower the price of the stock and create a false market in a 413-page strong response to the 88 questions answered by the New York-based short-seller.

This is not just an unfair attack on one company, but a premeditated attack on India, the independence, integrity, and quality of Indian institutions, as well as India's economic story and ambition, Adani said.