Mumbai: Billionaire Gautam Adani, who has added a whopping $55.3 billion to his fortune this year, is neck and neck with Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s richest.
Ambani could add $13 billion to his wealth this year so far.
Mukesh Ambani, with a net worth of $89.7 billion, was ranked as Asia’s richest, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, while Gautam Adani, with a fortune of $89.1 billion, was trailing Ambani by $600 million after Wednesday’s close.
On Thursday, the stock price of Reliance Industries and Adani Group-listed firms may decide who will be Asia’s richest.
With the fall of the $15-billion deal, with Saudi Aramco to buy a 20 per cent stake in Reliance’s oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, Reliance shares continued to fall on Wednesday. However, Reliance shares traded up 1.31 per cent on Thursday after the company announced restructuring and repurposing its gasification assets.
Reliance market capitalisation on Wednesday was pegged at Rs 15.01 trillion, still India’s most-valued company.
On the other hand, Adani Group firms also opened in green.
Adani Enterprises was trading up 0.33 per cent, while Adani Transmission was trading up 1.33 per cent on Thursday morning early trade.
The total market capitalisation of the listed Adani Group firms is pegged at over Rs 10 trillion compared to Reliance Industries’ market capitalisation of Rs 15.01 trillion.
However, Gautam Adani’s higher promoter holding in his listed group companies may make him richer than Mukesh Ambani, if Adani Group firms outperform Reliance Industries on Thursday.