Indian Billionaire Adds Nearly $1B In A Day, Outperforming Musk, Bezos Combined

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani added nearly $1 billion in a single day after his conglomerate Adani Group announced that it would snap a majority stake in New Delhi Television (NDTV).

What Happened: Adani's net worth swelled by $928 million on Wednesday. Among his peers, Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk gained $532 million and Amazon Inc AMZN founder Jeff Bezos added $204 million, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.

This may not be a special day for Adani who has added $59.2 billion to his wealth this year, the highest amount for anyone on Bloomberg's list of the world's 500 wealthiest people.

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The massive spur in Adani's fortune was triggered by the announcement of his conglomerate that it aims to indirectly buy a 29.18% stake in NDTV and launch an open offer for another 26% stake. The open offer would be worth ₹4.93 billion ($61.73 million).

However, the NDTV on Thursday sought to block Adani's attempt to acquire a majority stake in the news network. In a stock exchange filing to Indian exchanges, the company said its founders Prannoy and Radhika Roy had been barred from buying or selling shares in India's securities market since 2020 and, therefore, cannot transfer shares.

This came after NDTV issued a statement shortly after Gautam Adani's announcement and said the move by the Adani Group "was executed without any input from, conversation with, or consent of the NDTV founders."

Meanwhile, Adani's conglomerate is "deeply overleveraged," with the group investing aggressively across existing as well as new businesses, predominantly funded with debt, Bloomberg reported, citing CreditSights, a Fitch Group unit's report.

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