Indian billionaires: Gautam Adani, Dilip Shanghvi see highest growth

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Adani, 52, has added nearly $3 billion (Rs 19,000 crore) to his wealth on soaring shares of his companies that operate in areas such as trading, power, ports and edible oils. Much of this has to do with the fact that Adani has been on an asset buying spree since the middle of last year — he bought the Dhamra port from the Tata Group for $900 million (Rs 5,700 crore) and agreed to pay $1 billion (Rs 6,300 crore) for Lanco Infratech’s Udupi power plant. The steady growth in wealth among the country’s billionaires, is reflected in the growth in the broader markets.

Stock market wealth is estimated to have shot up by a notional Rs 10 lakh crore during the last 12 months. While conglomerates such as the Tatas, the Adani group and Bharti Airtel are among those that clocked sharp gains during the period, the two Ambani groups, the Vedanta conglomerate, core sector major L&T saw their wealth being whittled down. Despite a sharp plunge in stock markets during the past couple of months, the benchmark indices have managed to clock an annual gain of nearly 12 per cent during the one-year period.