A beaming Gautam Adani stood beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, looking relaxed as hundreds of people gathered for the ceremonial signing at the Haifa Port, which the Indian billionaire is co-developing.
The 60-year-old tycoon had reason to be buoyant: last-minute bids had helped the flagship of his ports-to-power empire close a record $2.5 billion (¥327.5 billion) share sale despite a searing short seller attack that triggered a stock rout. As he headed home from Tel Aviv at 6:13 p.m. local time in his Bombardier Global 6500 private jet — a relatively new acquisition with super-speedy wireless connectivity — the industrialist spent a lot of time in the quietest part of the flight cabin on marathon calls.
But the brutal sell-off of Adani Group stocks continued on Wednesday, Feb. 1, wiping out market value of more than $80 billion in a week — despite the supposed successful conclusion to the share sale.