India’s richest man Gautam Adani is of the opinion that he is a first-generation entrepreneur who had to build everything from scratch and rankings and numbers do not matter, which he termed ‘media hype’. “I get my thrills from handling challenges and the bigger they are, the happier I am. For me, the opportunity and the ability to make a difference in the lives of people, contribute to the growth and building the nation is far more satisfying and important than being on some wealth ranking or any other valuation lists,” the Adani Group chairman said in an interview to India Today.
Adani, who has a net worth of about $150 billion, was answering a question on how it feels to be ranked as India’s richest and the world’s third richest person. Responding to another question on allegations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is behind his meteoric rise, the reclusive billionaire said he was an easy target of such allegations as both of them hail from Gujarat. He also termed such allegations “baseless”.
Talking about his entrepreneurial journey, he credited former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for its success. “When I look back at my journey, I can divide it into four phases. Many will be surprised to know it all began during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi when he liberalised the Exim policy and several items were brought onto the open list. That is what helped start my export house. But for Rajiv Gandhi, my journey as an entrepreneur would never have taken off.”
The sweeping economic reforms of PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh in 1991 was the second big push, which benefited many entrepreneurs, and former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel’s focus on coastal development led him to Mundra port, the group’s first. Patel started focusing on coastal development after he was sworn in as the chief minister in 1995.
The fourth turning point of his entrepreneurial journey was in 2001, when Gujarat witnessed a massive focus on development under the then chief minister Narendra Modi, he added. Answering a question on banks, including public sector ones, on the group’s debt, Adani said the group was financially strong and secure. “People raise concerns without verifying the facts. The fact is, nine years ago, out of our total debt, 86% was lending from Indian banks. But now, the exposure of Indian banks in our total lending is reduced to only a level of 32%.”
“The fact of the matter is that, in the past nine years, our profit has been growing at twice the rate of our debt, because of which our debt-to-Ebitda ratio has come down from 7.6 to 3.2, which is very healthy for a large group where most of the companies are in the infrastructure space with assured and predictable cash flow unlike in manufacturing,” he added.
On the recent takeover of New Delhi Television (NDTV), the billionaire said there will be no interference from the management on its editorial decisions and a clear “lakshman rekha” will be maintained between the management and the editorial.