Adani Group has triggered massive uproar and protests in Kenya after revelations of a controversial deal to take over the country’s biggest and busiest airport – Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

In the contentious deal with the Kenyan Authorities, the company plans to invest Sh230.40 billion ($1.8 billion) in the ‘expansion and operation’ of JKIA.

But who exactly owns the company? Where does it operate? Where has it operated before?

Can Kenyans trust the owner with the running of one of the country’s biggest strategic assets?

Adani Group – currently valued at approximately Sh4.09 trillion ($32 billion) – is owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.

Adani dropped out of school at the age of 16.

The billionaire, who hails from a middle-class family of textile merchants, abandoned his father’s shop and moved to Mumbai to try his hand at business.

The 62-year-old started trading in diamonds in the 1980s.

Two years later, he returned to his home state of Gujarat to run a packaging factory managed by a brother.

In 1988, he established his firm – Adani Group.

Notably, in January the same year, the businessman and an associate were allegedly kidnapped for ransom from their car at gunpoint by a group of men in Ahmedabad City in India. 

Nonetheless, the firm grew rapidly. 

Adani developed interests in ports, airports, power generation and transmission and coal mines.

Reportedly with the support of the Indian authorities, the company rose to become the country’s biggest company in port operation.

The businessman is believed to be a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Adani has constantly refuted claims by the Indian opposition that he benefits from his political ties with the PM.

As of April 2022, Adani had a personal worth of Sh15.10 trillion ($118 billion).

Through his company, he is arguably the third richest man in the world after X owner Elon Musk and American businessman Jeff Bezos.

Currently, Adani Group operates major ports, including Mundra Port, India's largest.

In 2022, the firm acquired Abbot Point, a controversial coal mining project in Australia.

Abbot Point’s Carmichael coal mine is touted as one of the world's largest. With six coal-fired power plants, Adani is India's largest private player in power.

Adani became India's second-largest cement producer in 2022, after acquiring Swiss firm Holcim's Indian assets for $10.5 billion.

The businessman says he wants to be the world's largest producer of green energy and will invest up to $70 billion in renewable energy projects.

However, despite the massive investments, controversy rocked the firm.

In 2023, US activist investment firm Hindenburg Research accused Adani and his companies of financial fraud worth Sh27.90 trillion ($218 billion).

In a report, Hindenburg Research also accused Adani of ‘brazen’ stock market manipulation.

The report further implicates Adani Group for engaging in stock price manipulation and accounting fraud over decades.

The report names several family members and associates of the Adani Group—for their involvement in alleged major bribery and tax evasion cases.

The Hindenburg report also claims that Adani family members allegedly cooperated in the creation of offshore shell entities worth $4.5 billion through forged documents, primarily in tax-haven jurisdictions like Mauritius, the UAE and the Caribbean islands.

The damning revelation hit Adani hard, drastically slashing his net worth by about Sh2.56 trillion ($20 billion).

However, Adani refuted the report.

“For a discredited short-seller under the scanner for several violations of Indian securities laws, Hindenburg's allegations are no more than red herrings thrown by a desperate entity with total contempt for Indian laws.”

Adani recovered substantially after India's Supreme Court ruled in the group's favour a year later.

In January this year, India's Supreme Court said the group does not need to face more investigations beyond the current scrutiny of the market regulator.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India had been probing the Adani group following the report by Hindenburg.

With the Kenya deal, which has since been stopped by courts, JKIA would have been Adani’s first airport venture outside India.

As part of the project, Adani Airport Holdings plans to invest Sh96 billion ($750 million) by 2029 to build a new terminal and taxiway.

By 2035, the company aims to invest an additional Sh11.77 billion ($92 million) for further upgrades.

The long-term plan is to list the airport business on stock exchanges by the fiscal year 2028, which could help finance more global projects.