illionaire business tycoon Gautam Adani is no longer the richest man in Asia and India, according to Bloomberg.
Over the course of about a week, Adani's personal net worth has dropped dramatically after starting last week as the world's third richest person.
On Wednesday, Adani's net worth fell below that of Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani, whose company Reliance Industries is involved in oil and gas, telecommunications, retail and other sectors. Adani had laid claim to the title of India's richest man since February 2022, when he was briefly the world's second richest person.
Currently, Adani still has a fortune of $72 billion, but has lost the most wealth of anyone listed in the Bloomberg Billionaire Index since the beginning of the year. Adani's declining personal net worth - which has fallen by nearly $50 billion this year - follows the release last week of a report on Adani's eponymous company by activist investor group Hindenburg Research. The short-seller's report alleges that "brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud" worth $218 billion took place at Adani Group over several decades.
The Hindenburg report alleges that large stakes in Adani Group subsidiaries are held by offshore shell companies controlled by relatives, dramatically driving up the value of the group.
The firm said its report was based on dozens of interviews, including with senior Adani Group executives, as well as thousands of documents and site visits in various countries.
Adani Group on Sunday strongly denied the allegations in a 413-page rebuttal. The company also threatened legal action against the short seller.
As a result of the report, Adani Group's flagship company, Adani Enterprises, and its subsidiaries lost more than $90 billion in market value by Wednesday. The findings also had an impact on other Indian companies; state-owned Life Insurance Company of India, which holds a significant stake in Adani Enterprises, also saw its share price fall significantly since the publication of the Hindenburg Report.
These latest losses have cost India a place among the world's top five stock markets after India's market capitalization fell to $3.2 trillion on Monday.
The impact on Adani's personal fortune, the market value of his companies and the effect on several other Indian groups has implications that reach into the highest levels of government, according to observers. The Adani Group is the company most closely associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Adani's rise since Modi took office in 2014 has been touted as a success story emblematic of India's growth.
Adani's net worth has increased by 900% in the last two years alone.
The Adani Group referred to as the Hindenburg Report a "calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity, and nice of Indian institutions"
Despite the crisis, Adani Enterprises raised $2.5 billion in a share sale that closed Tuesday. The ability to raise the entire sum was seen as a vote of confidence by investors. One of the big backers was Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company, an existing investor in Adani Enterprises, which said in a statement that it believed in the fundamentals of the Indian conglomerate.