I Owe My Success To Over 30 Years Of Institutional Reforms: Gautam Adani

Adani Group's Chairman Gautam Adani stated that his group's success over the years is due to policy and institutional reforms in the country, and “not because of any individual leader.” 

The billionaire was speaking in an interview to India Today TV, where he added that he is often an easy target for 'baseless allegations' simply due to the fact that he is from the same state as Prime Minister Modi. His proximity to the BJP leader is well-recognised and frequently critcised  

Disregarding such allegations, Adani said that his entrepreneurial journey would not have started well if not for former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. “But for Rajiv Gandhi, my journey as an entrepreneur would never have taken off,” he said. 

After Rajiv Gandhi, it was the leadership of P V Narasimha Rao that gave his journey its second push, the billionaire added. 

Adani also gave credit to the Keshubhai Patel, former Chief Minister of Gujarat. It was during his term that Adani Group made its foray into Mundra Port, which remains a very profitable asset to the group. 

Currently, the group is actively involved in a variety of business sectors and is rightly dubbed as a port-to-power conglomerate. 

It is a common perception that the fortunes of Adani Group took a sharp turn for the better after Narendra Modi became the Chief Minister of Gujarat. 

Regarding this, Adani clarified, “My professional success is not because of any individual leader but because of the policy and institutional reforms initiated by several leaders and governments during a long period of over three decades.” 

The conglomerate recently made its mark in the media industry when it assumed control of NDTV, with a 65 per cent stake. Dismissing fears of NDTV losing its editorial independence, Adani said  “NDTV will be a credible, independent, global network with a clear lakshman rekha between management and editorial.” 

There are also concerns over his group's debt profile with allegations of it being deeply debt-leveraged. However, Adani finds his group's debt-to-earnings ratio pretty healthy. 

He said, “In the past nine years, our profit has been growing at twice the rate of debt, because of which our debt-to-earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation ratio has come down from 7.6 to 3.2. This 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.”