NEW DELHI (AP) — Asia’s controversial richest man, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, is again in the spotlight. His companies’ stocks plunged up to 20% on Thursday after he was indicted by U.S. prosecutors on charges he duped investors in a massive solar energy project in India by concealing that it was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme.
In an indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in New York on Wednesday, Adani, 62, was charged with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.
One result of the U.S. legal action is that the Adani group decided not to proceed with a proposed U.S. dollar-denominated bond offering. Adani Renewables announced the decision in letters to the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India.
Who is Gautam Adani?
Adani is the son of a middle-class family in Ahmedabad in western India’s Gujarat state. Adani quit college to become a diamond trader in Mumbai, India’s financial capital. In the 1980s, he started importing plastics before establishing Adani Enterprises, which traded in everything from shoes to buckets and remains his flagship company.
India opened up its economy in the 1990s and a new middle class emerged as tens of millions of people escaped poverty and the economy boomed, prompting Adani to bet on infrastructure and coal.
Adani’s first big project, the Mundra port in Gujarat, opened in 1998 and is now India’s largest. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. is India’s biggest private port operator. Within a decade, Adani became India’s largest developer and operator of coal mines. According to Adani Power’s website, it has expanded to Australia and Indonesia and is on track to be “one of the largest mining groups in the world.”
Adani companies, India’s second-largest conglomerate, operate airports in major cities, build roads, generate electricity, manufacture defense equipment, develop agricultural drones, sell cooking oil and run a media outlet. Despite his fossil fuel roots, the billionaire Adani Green aims to become the world’s largest renewable energy player by 2030.
Why is Adani controversial?
Adani is considered close to the Hindu nationalist government, and the political opposition has long accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having close ties with the tycoon. They both hail from the western state of Gujarat.
The businessman’s critics say much of his success stems from his close ties to the government and Modi. For example, they have accused the government of adjusting bidding rules to make it easier for Adani to win contracts to operate airports. The company denies this, saying contracts were won relatively transparently.