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India election: Gautam Adani suffers US$25 billion wealth wipeout from Modi letdown
- It was the biggest single-day rout the Adani Group has faced, dwarfing the hit it took from a US short seller’s allegations of corporate misconduct
- The steep loss, exceeded only by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, toppled Adani as Asia’s richest person and left his fortune at US$97.5 billion
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For Gautam Adani, an underwhelming election win for Narendra Modi’s party is worse than a short-seller attack.
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The Indian tycoon’s wealth tumbled by almost US$25 billion on Tuesday, the biggest one-day loss for an Asian billionaire ever, after the Modi-led political alliance failed to deliver the landslide electoral victory predicted by exit polls.
All 10 Adani Group stocks plummeted, wiping out almost US$45 billion in group market value. It was the biggest single-day rout the US$189 billion conglomerate has faced, dwarfing the hit from Hindenburg Research’s allegations of corporate misconduct over a year ago.
Adani’s wealth wipeout was the fourth-largest one-day decline on record caused by market swings, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The steep loss, exceeded only by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, toppled Adani as Asia’s richest person and left his fortune at US$97.5 billion.
On Monday, bullish exit polls for Modi had boosted the Adani Group’s market value by US$20 billion.
Adani’s rapid descent from one of the year’s biggest wealth gainers is a stark reminder that investors see his conglomerate’s fortunes as being tied to Modi’s mandate as India’s leader. The Adani Group and its founder have maintained that they have no improper relationship with the government and can execute their ambitious infrastructure projects under any administration.
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