By IANS
New York : London-based steel magnate Lakshmi N. Mittal once again topped the list of 40 richest Indians compiled by Forbes magazine, which says they are the wealthiest group in Asia with a combined net worth of $351 billion.
Mittal is assessed to be worth $51 billion. Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries with $49 billion is second on the list, followed closely by his brother Anil, who is assessed to be worth $48 billion.
K.P. Singh of DLF, Azim Premji of Wipro, Sunil B. Mittal of Bharti group, Shashi and Ravi Ruia of the Essar group, Ramesh Chandra of Unitech, Kumar Mangalam Birla of Aditya Vikram Birla group and Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon complete the top 10.
“These are heady times for India’s richest,” the magazine said, attributing the gain to strong performance of Indian stock markets that saw a key Indian index surge 53 percent over the past year.
“The four richest Indians are worth an astonishing $180 billion. Together, the foursome is worth more than the forty richest Chinese combined,” the magazine said in its latest edition.
“For the first time, all India rich-listers are billionaires.” A net worth of $1.6 billion was the minimum needed for the list. Result: long-time members like Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways were out, in spite of a 55 percent jump in wealth to $1.55 billion.
The aggregate wealth of the 40 richest Indians was $170 billion last year.
Thirteen other billionaires missed the cut, including Nandan Nilekani and S. Gopalakrishnan of Infosys Technologies and self-made billionaire Jignesh Shah, who built India’s largest commodities exchange.
“Also among this group of just-misses were five newly minted billionaires, including pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Murali K. Divi and India’s bullish investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.”
Forbes said 29 of the people who returned to the list were richer than last year including Rahul Bajaj, who is battling his younger sibling over dividing their empire. His fortune was flat at $2.3 billion.
Ten newcomers made the cut, including Guatam Adani, who built the Mundra Port on India’s west coast, Anand Jain, Mukesh Ambani’s friend, and Gautum Thapar, whose Ballarpur Industries is India’s largest paper-maker.
The red-hot real estate sector churned out a couple more billionaires as well — Niranjan Hiranandani, who built a thriving township outside Mumbai and Rakesh Wadhawan, whose Housing Development and Infrastructure made him a billionaire.
Commenting on individuals on the list, the magazine noted that Mittal, who had acquired rival steel maker Areclor earlier, had emerged as the world’s largest steel maker and even feted the world’s top 2,100 bankers in September.
Calling Mukesh Ambani India’s richest resident, it said he derived his fortune from petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries founded by his late father. The company is also now India’s most valuable with a $100 billion market cap.
On his brother Anil, Forbes said his biggest asset was the 66 percent stake in telecom venture Reliance Communications, though he also has some other ventures such as owning India’s largest mutual fund.
“Still feuding with Mukesh since the 2005 split, (Anil) has taken him to court. Recent ruling gives brothers four months to renegotiate a gas-supply agreement,” the magazine added.
The complete list, rank-wise, is as follows: Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Kushal Pal Singh, Azim Premji, Sunil B. Mittal, Shashi and Ravi Ruia, Ramesh Chandra, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Tulsi Tanti, Savitri Jindal, Anil Agarwal, Gautam Adani, Grandhi Rao, Adi Godrej, Uday Kotak, Indu Jain, Shiv Nadar, Anand Jain, Dilip Shanghvi, Jaiprakash Gaur, Cyrus Poonawalla, Kalanithi Maran, Subhash Chandra, Baba Kalyani, Rakesh Wadhawan, Rahul Bajaj, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, Venugopal Dhoot, Rajan Raheja, Niranjan Hiranandani, Vivek Burman, L. Madhusudhan Rao, Gautam Thapar, Anurag Dikshit, Vikas Oberoi, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Anu Aga, Gracias Saldanha and Vijay Mallya.