According to a report by Bloomberg news agency, billionaire Gautam Adani is seeking for a new head for his mergers and acquisitions strategy as the current CEO will shortly assume a new post within the Group. According to the agency, Vinod Bahety, who has been in charge of Adani Enterprises Ltd.’s M&A activity, would switch to a different industry.
Beyond coal, where he made his riches, Adani had been actively expanding his empire into industries including data centres, airports, digital services, media, and health care. The group today controls the largest private-sector coal miner, city-gas distributor, and operator of ports and airports in India.
A hostile takeover attempt was recently made by the business tycoon against New Delhi Television Ltd. In order to increase its presence in India’s media industry, the conglomerate Adani Group purchased a 29.2% ownership in the news media company New Delhi Television Ltd. or NDTV and made an offer to purchase an additional 26% from the open market.
In a $10.5 billion transaction, the billionaire also consented to purchase Holcim AG’s cement business in India. Additionally, he promised to spend $70 billion on renewable energy this year. The shift to green energy and infrastructure has attracted investments from companies like Warburg Pincus and TotalEnergies SE, allowing Adani to surpass US tech moguls in the untapped market. Some credit analysts are concerned about the group’s excessive debt and the management bandwidth becoming overstretched due to the group’s rapid growth, often in unrelated areas.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Adani rose to third place in the world’s wealth with a $137.4 billion fortune. In 2022 alone, Gautam Adani increased his wealth by $60.9 billion, five times more than anyone else. He initially eclipsed Ambani as the wealthiest Asian in February, achieved millionaire status in April, and this month passed Bill Gates of Microsoft Corp. to become the fourth richest person in the world. Adani currently follows only Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the leaderboard after passing Bernard Arnault of France.
