The unstoppable Gautam Adani

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Editor's note: Till about a fortnight ago, it looked like Gautam Adani, chairman of the $100 billion Adani Group, had missed the bus on what could have been India’s biggest renewable energy deal. On offer was a company with a portfolio of assets adding up to 5 gigawatt in capacity. Some of these assets were in operation while others were in various stages of execution. The company, SB Energy India, a joint venture between Japanese investor SoftBank and Delhi-based telecoms player Bharti Airtel, also had in place power purchase agreements with various government entities, which guaranteed that the power it generated would be picked up at predetermined rates for 25 years.  The company, on the face of it, looked like a good fit for Adani, who has an ambitious plan to generate 25 GW of renewable power by 2025. Also, as only a fourth of SB Energy’s assets in India were operational, Adani wouldn’t have had to fork out a big sum upfront. Even though SB Energy India was on the block for more than a year looking for suitors, Adani was …