After allegations of fraud, the shares of companies owned by Gautam Adani – until recently Asia’s richest man – have suffered serious damage. In a matter of days, Adani has lost billions of dollars.
The Indian industrialist has built up a fortune in recent years. He is active in various sectors: from ports and coal to data and media companies and renewable energy. That put him in the top three richest people on earth last year.
However, a report from the American shortseller Hindenburg Research this week put Adani in a tight spot. It says that Adani was guilty of all kinds of financial malpractice. Although Adani denies it, the report has sparked a selloff of shares of his companies on the Mumbai Stock Exchange in recent days. A total of $ 51 billion in market capitalization has already gone up in smoke. Some business units — Adani Green Energy and Adani Total Gas, for example — lost more than 20 percent on Friday, forcing trading to be suspended.
Adani’s personal fortune also suffers from the stock market loss. In just two days, the businessman lost 19 billion dollars. In the ranking of the richest people on earth drawn up by business magazine Forbes, he has fallen from third place to seventeen.
