In a big blow to his berth of Asia's second richest man, Adani Group founder Gautam Adani had on Monday lost $10 billion, around Rs 73,250 crore, in an hour as the sequel of the sudden crisis in the stocks of his empire. With the downward trend, the Himalayan loss means to Adani, whose arm is stretching across all the corridors in recent years, that he will most likely lose his rank of the second richest man in Asia while Reliance's Mukesh Ambabu continues to be the richest man in the largest continent. 

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires' Index, Adani's personal wealth stood at $77 billion (Rs 5.64 lakh crore) as of Friday and the total market capitalization of Adani Group was Rs 9.5 lakh crore. The reports say that the stocks of the Adani group companies had declined in the morning trade on June 14 after the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) has frozen three Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) accounts that own shares in four of the listed Adani firms. 

While the reason for the freezing of accounts is not made public, the reports close to the development that it could be due to insufficient disclosure of information concerning beneficial ownership as per the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It has been reported that the NSDL has frozen the accounts of Albula Investment Fund, Cresta Fund, and APMS Investment Fund, which together own more than Rs 43,000 crore worth of shares in Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission, and Adani Total Gas.

As per NSDL's website, these accounts were frozen on or before May 31. The drive of freezing accounts means the funds would not be able to sell any of the existing securities or buy any new securities. As the freezing had come to light, Adani Group stocks including Adani Green, Adani Transmission, and Adani Gas hit lowest on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) down 5 per cent each while the shares of Adani Enterprises had gone down to 20 per cent. 

The reports say that shares of six Adani Group listed firms had declined over Rs 1 lakh crore of market capitalization as shares of Adani Group's flagship firm Adani Enterprises had fallen down to 20 per cent. These three funds are based out of Mauritius and registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as Foreign Portfolio Investors. They together hold 6.82% in Adani Enterprises, 8.03% in Adani Transmission, 5.92% in Adani Total Gas, and 3.58% in Adani Green.