(Reuters) – Indian billionaire Gautam Adani oversees a sprawling conglomerate with businesses ranging from airport construction to electricity supply and cooking oil sales.
US authorities have accused Adani, his cousin and executive director Sagar Adani and Adani Green managing director Vneet S. Jaain of being part of a scheme to pay $265 million in bribes to secure Indian power supply contracts, and Mislead US investors during fund investments. rises there.
The group calls the accusations unfounded.
Here are the key details of Adani Group’s operations:
** Energy: The company mines thermal coal and produces power through its utility Adani Power, which is transmitted through Adani Energy Solutions.
The port-to-power conglomerate’s renewable energy arm is Adani Green Energy, which is at the center of the US indictment. It focuses on solar, wind and hybrid energy generation and has a presence in a dozen Indian states.
Adani Total Gas, which distributes natural gas through pipes, is managed in partnership with TotalEnergies.
** Airports: Since entering the space in 2019, the group has been operating airports in cities from Mumbai, the commercial capital, to the tourist city of Jaipur and southern Thiruvananthapuram, through its flagship company, Adani Enterprises.
The flagship is also present in roads, real estate and infrastructure.
** Edible oils and foods: The group’s joint venture with Singapore’s Wilmar International makes edible oils and packaged foods such as fragrant basmati rice, wheat flour and sugar under the Adani Wilmar banner.
** Port Operations: Adani Ports, India’s largest private operator by volume, manages 13 domestic ports, including the country’s busiest private port, Mundra in the western state of Gujarat.
Outside India, Adani Ports owns a 70% stake in the Israeli port of Haifa and 51% in the port of Colombo in Sri Lanka.
** Cement: The group entered the sector in 2022 and signed its largest ever deal in this space by acquiring Holcim AG’s stake in Ambuja Cements and ACC. Since then, the company has been making acquisitions in its bid to topple India’s largest cement maker, UltraTech Cement.
** Media: Adani entered the Indian media industry by acquiring a majority stake in Quintillion Business Media, a digital media platform for financial news, in 2022. It then strengthened its hold in the sector by signing deals with news channel NDTV in 2022 and news agency IANS in 2023.
It also builds and operates data centers across the country.
** Defense and Space: The group is one of the few private players in a state-dominated arms sector, supplying indigenously manufactured weapons to Indian armed forces. In 2018, it signed a supply agreement with Israel’s Elbit Systems.
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon and Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
