Gautam Adani becomes world’s second-richest person, surpasses Jeff Bezos

Beating Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault in the ‘billionaire’s race’, Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani has now become the second richest person in the world. The net worth of the Adani Group chairman currently stands at $155.5 billion (Rs12.37 lakh crore).

As per Forbes Real Time Billionaires List, the billionaire tycoon’s net worth rocketed by $5.2 billion. It’s a hike of almost 3.49 percent. Adani is narrowly ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and France’s Bernard Arnault by a whisker.

Interestingly, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, is still ranked first on the rich list.

The second Indian businessman who gets his place on Forbes’ top 10 list is Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries. Other billionaires on the list include Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin.

Last month, Adani had overtaken Louis Vitton boss Arnault to become the third richest man in the globe. It was the first time when an Asian was ranked among the top three billionaires.

According to Bloomberg, Adani Wilmar Ltd is now looking for domestic and international acquisition prospects to grow its food operations business. Angshu Mallick, the chief executive officer and managing director, said that the company is mulling acquire brands in staple foods and distribution companies to boost its consumer goods offering.

For the purchases, Adani Wilmar has earmarked a whopping Rs 500 crore from its initial public offering. Internal accruals will provide additional funding and 30 billion rupees of planned capital expenditure for next year.

Notably, the shares of the food company have more than tripled since its $486 million debut in February this year.