Gautam Adani was a college dropout who went to Mumbai to chase his dreams. Adani and his seven siblings belonged to a modest Jain family from Ahmedabad and his father was the sole breadwinner. Now a business tycoon, he founded Adani Group, the largest port operator in India. Adani is one of the biggest gainers with his wealth rising by 96 per cent. His net worth soared to Rs 1,01,307 crores from Rs 51,612 crore last year.
Adani started with an average job as a diamond sorter at the Mumbai branch of Mahindra Brothers. With his sharp sense for business, he started his own diamond brokerage at Zaveri Bazaar, the popular jewellery market of the city. The turning point of his life was when he entered the global trading market through his brother’s plastic unit in Ahmedabad. He entered the market to import polyvinyl chloride, a key industrial raw material. However, economic liberalisation helped Adani and he established Adani Group in 1988.
Over the last 25 years, the group has established itself as a leading infrastructure conglomerate from India “The macroeconomics of India have never looked stronger and our continued investment has been driven by our confidence that over the next two decades, India will easily be one of the Top 5 largest nations in the world fuelled by the demand of its own population and energised by the sheer potential of a young workforce unparalleled anywhere else in the world,” Adani says on the company website.
His company, reported a 3.11 per cent increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 350.55 crore for the third quarter ended December 2017-18. “The consolidated income from operations for the quarter is Rs 9,938 crore versus Rs 8,606 crore for the corresponding period in the previous year. The Ebidta for the quarter is Rs 1,048 crore versus Rs 705 crore in Q3 FY’17,” Adani Enterprises said in a statement.
Adani claims that his company is focused on “incubating diverse nation-critical businesses to address the country’s growing appetite for energy, food and infrastructure”.