Gautam Adani buys Holcim’s India business. Who is the man?

A photo came with the press release: Holcim CEO Jan Jenisch shakes Gautam Adani’s hand, on the table are a Swiss and an Indian flag. Holcim announced over the weekend that it was selling its cement business in India to the Adani Group: both the 63 percent stake in Mumbai-listed Ambuja Cements and the 4.5 percent stake in ACC. In total, Holcim will receive 6.4 billion Swiss francs from Adani.

Gautam Adani, the man in the photo, the man with the side parting and the small mustache, could also be an Indian official. One of the Indian men in their prime who strolls through the corridors of the administration building drinking tea and eventually turns into their dovecote-sized office. There is nothing flamboyant about Adani. He could also be one of those prime-aged men in Delhi who, early in the morning in Delhi, set down their plastic chair on a patch of English lawn and read the newspaper. Adani, 59, is one of the most powerful men in India and one of the richest men in the world.

In just a year, Adani has almost doubled his fortune. According to that Bloomberg Billionaire Index now totals $120 billion, putting him in fifth place, ahead of only Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and Bill Gates. His Adani Group is a conglomerate that has grown so large in India that it reaches into almost every area of ​​life: electricity, food, airports – the Adani Group set according to the annual report $5.26 billion in the past fiscal year. With the Holcim deal, Adani becomes India’s second largest cement producer in one fell swoop.

A port as a base

Adani is a self-made billionaire. He comes from the state of Gujarat, he once broke off his studies in Mumbai to get into the diamond trade. He later returned home and in 1988 founded the Adani Group in Gujarat’s capital. He laid the groundwork for his unlikely rise in the 1990s when he secured the port of Mundra on the Gujarat coast. He skilfully navigated the Indian bureaucracy, buying more and more land around the port. Today Mundra is a special trade zone. This means: There are no customs duties in Mundra.

Adani himself said in 2011 in the “New York Times”, his rise was shaped by opportunities: First came the port, which led him into the energy sector, India’s hunger for coal led him to other countries. It is one of the few conversations with Adani, the billionaire is considered media shy.

In the 1990s, India began to open up, ascension required electricity, and mining coal in India faced many hurdles. So Adani bought a coal mine in Indonesia – after all, he owned a port. Today, the Adani Group operates other mines in Australia, among other places. Realizing that India’s ailing infrastructure was not suitable for moving his coal onward, Adani built his own railway line. All of this has earned Adani a reputation as a doer, as one who is building the new India.

However, Adani is also the prototype of a businessman that no longer exists in the West: the tycoon. Adani owns not only the coal mine, but also the transport ship, the port, the freight train, the power plant. He not only produces food, he also provides the cold chain. He actually controls the prices. the “Financial Times” once compared Adani to John D. Rockefeller. Because like Rockefeller, Adani is also well connected politically.

friend of Modi

Adani’s rise is closely linked to that of India’s most powerful man today: Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2003 Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state. The business elite had turned their backs on him, Gujarat had just been shaken by Hindu-Muslim unrest, and Modi had at least not prevented the escalation of violence. Over 1000 people were murdered, most of them Muslims. Modi was persona non grata, he was no longer allowed to enter the United States.

But Adani stood by him. With this the fate of the two men was linked. Modi rose, he made a name for himself as a pro-business politician. Adani grew with him. India elected Modi Prime Minister in 2014. For the inauguration, Modi flew to Delhi in Adani’s private jet.

There is a second Indian billionaire on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index: Mukesh Ambani, number 9, wealth $97.7 billion. Like Adani, Ambani comes from Gujarat, like Adani he owns a conglomerate that is active in various sectors.

inequality increases

Adani and Ambani is a much heard duo in India. They represent a new business elite that rose in Prime Minister Modi’s slipstream, benefited from favors and now controls large parts of the Indian economy. The Center for monitoring Indian Economy writes: “It can not have escaped anyone who observes the Indian economy that Ambani and Adani are the fastest growing companies in recent times.”

The question is how much India’s consumers actually benefit from the rise of Adani and Ambani. According to that “Credit Suisse Wealth Report” India’s richest have increased their fortunes during the Covid pandemic. The richest 1 percent of India owned 39.5 percent of Indian wealth in 2019, up from 40.5 percent in 2020. The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, rose to 82.3 in 2020 – anything above 80 indicates a very unequal distribution of wealth.

India’s economy has been developing much more slowly than Modi once promised, not only since the pandemic. From the target of 5000 billion GDP in 2025 India is far away. the actual unemployment is high and economic growth was only moderate even before the pandemic.

According to Indian media reports Meanwhile, Adani is looking for his own media house.