A portrait of Gautambhai

The emergence of the house of Adani is both unusual and remarkable. A new biography of the business tycoon attempts to lay bare the secrets behind his stupendous trajectory, but leaves many questions

Gautam Adani: Reimagining Business In India and the World

Author: R N Bhaskar

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 264

Price: Rs 699

After economic liberalisation in 1991, big business houses have either got bigger or simply faded away into the sunset. In that context, the emergence of the house of Adani is both unusual and remarkable, for not just its ascent but also the speed with which this growth has been achieved. Though the journey is far from over, it’s a story that is worth examining. That’s the essence of this authorised biography by veteran journalist R N Bhaskar.

Mr Bhaskar, who has clearly got and maintained access to not just Gautam Adani but also his relatives, senior managers and executives and a variety of those in proximity to him, details his long-standing relationship with the business house upfront. In fact, this is Mr Bhaskar’s second book on Mr Adani; the first was also a biographical account written some 10 years ago. In that context, the story is clearly one that wholeheartedly believes in Team Adani and its wider goal of providing employment, economic stimulus and profit for all its partners and associates.

The corporate events that include setting up different businesses such as Mundra Port, clean energy, airports, coal and more are summarily described in what is best called a “textbook manner” rife with small charts and spreadsheets and tonnes of dates, names, datelines and figures. But the real reportage lies in Mr Adani’s early years.

He is presented as a shy Kutchi-origin trader with business chutzpah and burning ambition running through his veins in equal parts, a college dropout self-conscious about his English, shy, listens more than he talks and is deeply conscious about maintaining long-term and business relationships. Later he is described as someone driven by daring, a corporate crusader, if you will, who is hell-bent on doing one thing and one thing alone: Expanding his business holdings across the width and depth of ventures that are driven by natural resources that include coal, water, ports, and more.

Exactly where this drive comes from and what powers it aren’t entirely clear and could have been fleshed out more. For example, how has Mr Adani gone from being a relative nobody to one of the richest men in the world in just under two decades? The author claims the secret lies in trusting one’s intuition, the trading instinct to go for bigger and better deals and good old-fashioned luck.

All of those explanations may be partly true, but students of business would no doubt hanker for deeper explanations of how certain businesses were chosen versus others, how the house of Adani managed to deal with competition and the overarching object of its stupendous trajectory.

What is clear is that at many levels the Adani Group is a family-run enterprise with as many as nine or 10 family members directly involved in group roles that range from international business to shipping and finance.

Recurrently, the author who keeps referring to Adani as Gautambhai, suggests that the protagonist has always been someone who has at least in part been chosen for his path by destiny.

Yet, we are told, Mr Adani will leave no stone unturned, even sleeping on the floor or a train in order to learn from business associates who have greater knowledge than he does. Mr Adani was also a diamond trader for a while, which is interesting and noteworthy as is the fact that there were attempts made on his life, he was kidnapped once and then released and managed to escape alive from the basement of the Taj Mahal Palace during the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

The author doesn’t hesitate to address certain points of controversy such as Mr Adani’s tussle with environmentalists in Australia but once again, it’s dealt with in textbook fashion. Some deeper reportage, especially involving dissenting voices, would have lent greater insight.

He also talks about the group’s large debt and borrowings and says, “Critics have talked about the unsustainability of such high growth in borrowings but they forget an old saying — that it does not matter whether the money is borrowed or is your own money. Money must generate a decent return. It must generate profits that are higher than the commercial rate of borrowing.” There is no explanation as to what would happen if the returns don’t materialise, as Indian banks have experienced with other groups in the recent past.

Though researched extensively with innumerable citations and reference works, the author could have livened up the narrative with deeper comparisons with, say, the Ambanis, Tatas,  Birlas and their relative trajectories before and after independence to present a sharp analysis of the difference or the similarity in the way the house of Adani has grown and developed.  

There are references especially to the house of Reliance and Mukesh Ambani and their comparative performances and so on but given the differences in the nature of their ventures, the resonance is unwarranted. Of greater interest to readers would have been a closer look at Mr Adani’s management style and how he differs from other leaders of large enterprises such as Kumar Birla or Anand Mahindra.

One stark truism that Mr Bhaskar states is that “government favoured businessmen have been the norm with most governments in India and this is true of other nations as well”.

While the author may have been gracious in his overall view of how one of the country’s fastest-growing conglomerates have ramped up and what its future looks like, one thing is certain: There will be room for another book on the group and the man a few years from now.