mumbai gautam adani the worlds thirdrichest person has said that his group is financially strong with its profits growing twice the rate of its debt and the exposure of indian banks to its debt falling by more than 50 countering concerns that his portstopower conglomerate is overleveraged he also said that no other business group other than his has as many companies rated on par with indias sovereign ratingin an interview to india today adani said i am greatly surprised by conversations around our debt of rs 2 lakh crore we are financially very strong and secure such noises are coming from two categories the first category is of the people who are not doing deepdiving to understand the detailed nuances of debt and finances of company the second category of people are with vested interests deliberately creating confusion and misunderstanding to tarnish the reputation of the group the chairman of indias secondlargest conglomerate in terms of market value saidhis groups profit has been growing at twice the rate of its debt in the last nine years because of which its debttooperating profit ratio has come down to 3 2 from 7 6 this he added is very healthy for alarge group where most of the companies are in the infrastructure space with assured and predictable cash flow unlike in manufacturing furthermore adani said exposure of indian banks to groups debt has reduced to 32 from 86 in the last nine years almost 50 of our borrowing is now through international bondsadani attributed his business success to institutional reforms initiated by several leaders and governments of over three decadesmany will be surprised to know that it all began during the tenure of rajiv gandhi as pm when he first liberalised the exim exportimport policy that is what helped me to start my export house but for rajiv gandhi my journey as an entrepreneur would never have taken off the second big push came following the economic reforms initiated in 1991 by then pm narasimha rao and fm manmohan singhnext came in 1995 when the gujarat cm keshubhai patel focused on coastal development leading adani to build the port in mundra the fourth turning point adani said was in 2001 under the leadership of narendra modi then gujarat cm and now indias pm his policies and their implementation went on to not only change economic landscape of the state but also brought social transformation and development of previously underdeveloped areas it also allowed industries and employment to take off like never before