Haters won’t be able to stop Adani. Why? Because while others dither, he dares to act.
Gautam Adani is the flavor of the season.
He recently rose to become the world’s second richest person. His net worth is Rs 11.5 lakh crore. And Adani Group has a market cap of Rs 22 lakh crore.
It’s no surprise that many people cannot digest his success. They hate him. Critics question the Group’s debt levels. They question the bonafides of specific foreign funds invested in the Group’s stocks. They claim that the Group’s stocks are overvalued.
Sometimes, the absurdity of Adani haters crosses all limits. A few days ago, India was ranked 101 among the 116 countries on the Global Hunger Index. Not to waste an opportunity to target Adani, the members of opposition parties, among others, flooded the internet with memes and tweets, connecting Adani’s exponential rise in wealth with India’s poor performance on GHI.
Sometime back, the Adani haters had gone on a similar blitzkrieg holding Adani responsible for the rise in suicide cases of daily wage earners. For them, anything that goes wrong in a country of 1.4 billion people, Adani is responsible. Some even held Adani accountable for the political crisis in Sri Lanka and India’s border disputes with China.
Hate him as much as you want, but the naysayers just can’t stop thinking about Adani.
So, what is it about Adani that makes him so irresistible? That people spend so much effort and time just maligning Adani.
I believe it has to do with envy.
Over the past decade, Adani has made over 40 acquisitions worldwide.
Ambuja Cements, ACC, Hafia Ports in Israel, Mumbai International Port, Gangavaram Port in Andhra Pradesh, Essel Green’s solar power plant in Odisha, Soft Group-backed SB Energy — the list of Adani acquisitions is endless.
Because of marquee acquisitions, Adani’s net worth has increased by leaps and bounds.
People try to explain the surge in Adani’s wealth in simplistic terms. Oh, it’s all debt-fuelled. Oh, he has the government’s backing.
Start questioning each of these hypotheses, and you will conclude that it’s all hogwash.
Who got the Raffale deal? Adani, No. Anil Ambani.
Who celebrated his wife’s birthday at the ghats of Varanasi to earn brownie points with the Modi Government? Adani, No. Mukesh Ambani.
Who has been appointed as a trustee to PM Cares Fund? Adani, No. Ratan Tata.
Adani has become Adani because he just can’t think small.
And this habit of thinking big goes back to when he was in his early 20s.
In the late 1980s, when Adani was still in college, he set up a trading firm and turned it into the country’s leading import-export firm within no time.
In 1990 he developed Mundra port.
In 2002 he entered into a JV with Singapore-based Wilmar to start an edible oil business.
In 2005 he incorporated Adani gas.
In 2006 he got into the business of establishing silos.
In 2009 he set up thermal power plants.
Anybody who cares to be objective will find that most of Adani’s businesses were started when the Congress-led UPA was in power.
Adani has been betting on the India Growth story since the early 1990s. And he continues to do so.
Adani’s next big bet is green hydrogen and renewables. In fact, so infectious have been Adani’s ambitious green energy plans that it shook the mighty Tata Empire out of its slumber. Following Adani Green’s footsteps, Tata Power also came up with a public announcement of significant investments in renewable power.
Having said that, naysayers will continue to pull down Adani. No amount of objective arguments will convince them otherwise. They will plant stories against him. Sponsor malicious social media campaigns. And question his business methods.
But they won’t be able to stop Adani. Why? Because he puts his money where his mouth is. Because while others dither, he dares to act.