Apr’ 3: Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index says Gautam Adani, the chairman of Adani Group, is the latest to join the elite $100 billion club as he surpassed Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani to become India’s richest man.
Currently, Elon Musk is on top of the billionaires’ chart, followed by Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault in the second and third rank.
Adani added almost $24 billion this year, becoming the world’s biggest gainer. His wealth increased by around ₹6,000 crore every week over the last year. The industrialist now stands at the 10th rank in the index that calculates the world’s richest people according to their net worth.
Ambani, on the other hand, was ranked 11th after his net worth, which first topped that benchmark in October, dropped slightly below it to $99 billion, as per the report.
A college dropout, who dominated the coal industry at first, Adani soon expanded his fortune over related industries like green energy and infrastructure, which landed him investments from companies including France’s Total SE and Warburg Pincus.
He may will also be exploring partnerships in Saudi Arabia, potentially to buy a stake in the world’s largest oil exporter, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.
Just two weeks ago, Mukesh Ambani was named Asia’s richest man with $103 billion wealth, a whopping 24 per cent jump in a year. Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar became the newest billionaire in India after the company held a successful IPO, according to Global Rich List report compiled by research platform Hurun.
In the last ten years, Indian billionaires have added $700 billion to their cumulative wealth. This is equivalent to Switzerland’s GDP and twice the GDP of the United Arab Emirates.
As many as 215 billionaires reside in India – 249 if Indian origin billionaires are counted – and with 58 new additions, India maintains as the third largest billionaire producing nation in the world, adding to the gigantic rich-poor divide in the country.
