Indian industrialist Gautam Adani was until this week Asia’s richest man, with a business empire spanning coal, airports, cement and media but now he has been rocked by corporate fraud allegations and a stock crash.
Still, the tycoon — who has in a matter of days lost nearly $60 billion of his net worth and tumbled from third to 15th place on Forbes’ global rich list — is one of the business world’s great survivors.
On New Year’s Day in 1998, Adani and an associate were reportedly kidnapped by gunmen demanding a $1.5 million ransom, before being later released at an unknown location.
A decade later, he was dining at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace hotel when it was besieged by militants, who killed 160 people in one of India’s worst terror attacks.
Trapped with hundreds of others, Adani reportedly hid in the basement all night before he was rescued by security personnel early the next morning.
“I saw death at a distance of just 15 feet,” he said of the experience after his private aircraft landed in his hometown Ahmedabad later that day.
Adani, 60, differs from his peers among India’s mega-rich, many of whom are known for throwing lavish birthday and wedding celebrations that are later splashed across newspaper gossip pages.
A self-described introvert, he keeps a low profile and rarely speaks to the media, often sending lieutenants to front corporate events.
“I’m not a social person that wants to go to parties,” he told the Financial Times in a 2013 interview.
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