Gautam Adani

Gautam Adani (born June 24, 1962 in Ahmedabad, India) is an Indian businessman. He is the chairman of the Adani Group, a leading trading and export company of India. On November 16, 2007, Forbes magazine announced that Adani was the 13th richest person in India with a personal wealth of US$6.7 billion, making him the first billionaire from the city of Ahmedabad [cite news
url = http://www.indianexpress.com/story/239741.html
title = India now has 40 billionaires, Lakshmi Mittal tops the Forbes list
publisher = Indian Express
date = November 16, 2007
accessdate = 2007-11-16] [cite news
url = http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Ahmedabad/1st_Amdavadi_billionaire/articleshow/2544543.cms
title = 1st Amdavadi billionaire!
publisher = The Times of India
date = November 16, 2007
accessdate = 2007-11-16]

Biography

Gautam Adani was born on June 24 1962, to Shantilal and Shantaben Adani. He had seven siblings. Adani's parents had migrated from the town of Tharad in northern Gujarat in search of livelihood. Adani was born in the Seth ni Pol are located in Ratanpol in Ahmedabad. He set out for Mumbai to make a living with only a few hundred rupees at a young age of 18 only.He studied at the Seth C. N. Vidyalya school in Ahmedabad and later on at Gujarat University. Adani is University dropout , he studied till second year for his Bachelor's Degree in Commerce.

He worked in Mumbai as a diamond sorter at Mahindra Bros. After working there for two years, Adani, 20 at the time, set up his own diamond brokerage outfit at Zaveri Bazaar and made his first lakh.cite news
title = The Midas Touch
publisher = The Times of India
work = Times Business, Ahmedabad edition (print)
page=17
date = November 16, 2007
accessdate = 2007-11-16]

In 1981, 1 year later, his elder brother Mansukhbhai, bought a plastics unit in Ahmedabad and asked Gautam to run it. This marked the beginning of Adani's foray into global trading by beginning to import polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a key raw material for manufacturing plastics. After the economic liberalisation, the import duty on various goods was slashed, and profits of Adani Exports, then his flagship company, grew immensely. cite news
title = The Artful Trader
publisher = India Today
author = Rajeev Dubey
date = January 14, 2002
accessdate = 2007-11-16]

Adani is married to Priti Adani. She is a dentist and heads the Adani Foundation, of which she is a managing trustee. They have 2 sons. Karan Adani, 20, is pursuing his BS in Management from Purdue University, USA. Jeet Adani, their younger son is 10 years old. Gautam Adani owns 2 private jets - a Beechcraft jet purchased in 2005 and a Hawker purchased in 2007.

Controversies

Adani has been accused of taking favours from politicians, utilising policy loopholes

References