Billionaire Gautam Adani May Win Three More Slots on MSCI India Index

The group's flagship Adani Enterprises, gas supplier Adani Total Gas and power distributor Adani Transmission may get included in MSCI's country benchmark after the index provider's semi-annual review of its gauges in May

Billionaire Gautam Adani is likely to see three more companies from his coal mining-to-data centers conglomerate join the MSCI India Index after shares in each one of them more than doubled this year, according to analysts. The group's flagship Adani Enterprises, gas supplier Adani Total Gas and power distributor Adani Transmission may get included in MSCI's country benchmark after the index provider's semi-annual review of its gauges in May, according to broker Edelweiss Financial Services and independent research provider Smartkarma. Adani Green Energy and Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone are already there. The potential inclusions are seen further boosting wealth for Mr Adani, who has added $20.2 billion to his net worth this year, the second-biggest increase among the world's billionaires. The tycoon -- who started out as a commodities trader in the late 1980s -- has diversified from mines, ports and power plants into airports, data centers and defense. The rally in stocks shows investors have rewarded his strategy of interlocking his group's interests with the Indian government's infrastructure program. There is "very high probability of these Adani names to come in the index primarily due to the surge in their market capitalization," Brian Freitas, a New Zealand-based analyst at Smartkarma, said by phone. "ETFs and other passive funds will have to buy, adding to Adani's fortune." Passive funds may have to buy shares worth about $830 million in total in the three companies after their inclusion, according to calculations by Mr Freitas. Still, these stocks "trade much much higher than their global peers and longer-term returns may not be worth the risks involved," he wrote in a note Wednesday.