The net worth of the chairman of Reliance Industries stood at Rs 3,71,000 crore as on July 31, 2018.
Never mind the rupee woes, oil fears, plunging Sensex and geopolitical troubles, the wealth creation rate in India is at an all-time high, according to the recently-released Barclays Hurun India Rich List for 2018. For instance, India’s richest person Mukesh Ambani increased his wealth by Rs 300 crore per day over the past one year.
The net worth of the chairman of Reliance Industries stood at Rs 3,71,000 crore as on July 31, 2018. Ambani continues to hold on to “the top spot for the seventh year running on the back of a 47% rise in the share price of his flagship company”, said the report. In fact, his wealth is more than the combined wealth of the next three names on the latest rankings: New entrant SP Hinduja & Family with a net worth of Rs 1,59,000 crore, LN Mittal & Family (Rs 1,14,500 crore), and Wipro’s Azim Premji (Rs 96,100 crore).
The latter saw a 21% increase in his wealth. Barclays Hurun India Rich List is a compilation of the richest Indians – born or brought up in the country – having a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore or more. The number of individuals featured in the 2018 list increased by a third to 831 from 617 in 2017.
More impressively, the number has doubled since the 2016 rankings. Dilip Sanghvi of Sun Pharma has dropped three ranks since last year and is now the 5th richest Indian on the list with a net worth of Rs 89,700 crore. According to the report, his loss in wealth in Suzlon, whose share value declined by more than 50%, was neutralised by minor gains in Sun Pharma’s share price.With a wealth of Rs 78,600 crore, Uday Kotak, founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank, bagged the sixth place in the list, followed by Cyrus S Poonawalla of Serum Institute of India (Rs 73,000 crore) and Gautam Adani of Adani Enterprises (Rs 71,200 crore).
Former Tata Sons’ chairman Cyrus Pallonji Mistry and his brother Shapoor Pallonji Mistry share the 9th rank on the list with a net worth of Rs 69,400 crore each. The siblings have jumped three spots since last year courtesy a 41% increase in their wealth. And they can thank the 56% increase in TCS share price for that.
Significantly, more than 50% of the Indian businesses listed in the 2018 rankings are family-run.
Here are the top-10 richest Indian families:
Although more than 20 cities in India are home to people on the list – led by Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru – the report added that Indian wealth creators are increasingly going global by way of expansion or emigration.
The latest list includes 66 NRIs – up from 40 immigrants in the 2017 rankings – and a whopping 65% of them are self-made. With 21 individuals, UAE is the most preferred country for NRIs, followed by the US and the UK.
Yusuff Ali MA, with a fortune of Rs 39,200 crore, is the wealthiest UAE-based NRI.The cumulative wealth of the 831 individuals featured in the list stood at $719 billion – amounting to a quarter of Indian GDP of $2,848 billion (as per IMF’s estimate on April 1, 2018). There were 306 new names added to the list in the 2018 edition while 75 people dropped out.
All the self-made entrepreneurs on the list under 40 years, except for Sanjay Agarwal of AU Small Finance Bank, derive their wealth from tech-based ventures. Though the average age of this group is 35 years, the youngest person is just 24 – Ritesh Agarwal, founder of OYO Rooms, India’s newest unicorn.
“Next 10 years in India would witness young and next generation entrepreneurs taking charge of the family business and the unicorn entrepreneurs cashing out and eventually becoming VC houses,” the report said.
Thirty-three-year-old Shradha Agarwal of Outcome Health is the only self-made female entrepreneur under 40 to make it to the list. But broadly-speaking women have fared far better in the latest rankings than ever before, with female representation up a whopping 157%. Unfortunately, in a testimony to the ever-present glass ceiling, the homogametic sex accounts for only 16% of the Rich List 2018.’
