India: Billionaire business tycoon Gautam Adani now world's second richest man

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Billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani has now become the world's second richest man, replacing Bernard Arnault by a whisker on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. The Adani Group chairman's net worth currently stands at Rs12.37 trillion ($155.5 billion).

According to the Forbes list, Adani's net worth rose by $5.2 billion — a hike of 3.49 per cent. With this, he has inched ahead of French tycoon Bernard Arnault, the co-founder and chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy — Louis Vuitton SE, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who occupy the third and fourth spots respectively.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk continues to occupy the top position in the rich list.

Adani Group's stocks — Adani Enterprises, Adani Port and Adani Transmission — hit their record highs on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in Friday's early deals, leading to a surge in the group Chairman's real time net worth.

In the top 10 list, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is the second Indian with a net worth of $92.2 billion. The other billionaires in the top ten list include Bill Gates (net worth $105.3 billion), Larry Ellison (net worth $98.3 billion), and Warren Buffett (net worth $96.5 billion).

On August 30, Adani had surpassed Louis Vuitton boss Arnault to become the world's third richest man. This was an Asian's first foray into the top 3 of the prestigious Forbes list.

Adani, 60, has spent the past few years expanding his ports-to-power transmission empire, venturing into various businesses ranging from data centers to cement, media and more. The Adani Group owns India’s largest private-sector port and airport operator, city-gas distributor and coal miner.

Its food and kitchen essentials arm – Adani Wilmar is also looking for local and overseas acquisition targets in a bid to boost its empire’s food operations.

The company has earmarked Rs5 billion from its initial public offering for the purchases. The additional funding will be sourced from internal accruals and the Rs30 billion of planned capital expenditure for next year starting April. The food company’s shares have more than tripled, since its $486 million debut in February.

The announcement came after Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited announced its foray into the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) business through its subsidiary Reliance Retail, in August.