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Fortunes of top 100 rich Indians swell by 40% to cross $1 trillion: Forbes

RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani held on to the top spot on the Forbes list of India's richest

Fortunes of top 100 rich Indians swell by 40% to cross $1 trillion: Forbes
[Source photo: Chetan Jha/Press Insider]

The collective fortunes of India’s top 100 wealthy businesspeople surpassed the trillion dollar milestone for the first time, according to Forbes.

The top wealthy Indians added $316 billion, or nearly 40%, in just the past one year, Forbes said.

Investor enthusiasm about the India story after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power for a third term in June, albeit with a coalition, put the stock market on overdrive, it said.

India’s wealthiest are today worth $1.1 trillion, more than twice as rich as they were in 2019, it added.

Half a dozen of the richest in India saw their fortunes swell by more than $10 billion each, including the top five, who as a group gained nearly $120 billion. The top 12 list members account for roughly half the group’s combined wealth, it added.

Reliance Industries Ltd chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani, who announced a bonus issue of shares as a Diwali gift to investors, held on to the top spot on the Forbes list of India’s richest.

He’s the second-biggest gainer in dollar terms this year, with his wealth up $27.5 billion to $119.5 billion.

The biggest gainer is Adani group chairman Gautam Adani, whose companies posted a strong recovery after charges by short-seller Hindenburg led to a $153 billion wipe-off in market value.

With his brother Vinod, he added $48 billion to take the family’s net worth to $116 billion, enough to retain the No.2 position, Forbes said.

India’s richest woman, Savitri Jindal, matriarch of steel-to-power conglomerate O.P. Jindal Group moved up to No. 3 for the first time. Jindal, who won as an independent candidate in the just-concluded Haryana assembly eelctions, is one of nine women on the list, up from eight a year ago.

The new woman in the ranks is Mahima Datla, who controls privately-held vaccine producer Biological E. Datla is one of four newcomers to the list, a group that includes B. Partha Saradhi Reddy, founder of Hetero Labs, a maker of generic medicines and pharma ingredients.

The two other new faces are Harish Ahuja, whose Shahi Exports supplies to labels such as H&M and Calvin Klein; India’s booming IPO market made Surender Saluja, founder and chairman of Premier Energies, which makes solar panels and modules, a multi-billionaire after his company got listed in September.

Dilip Shanghvi, founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, jumped three spots to No. 5 with $32.4 billion on rising demand for its skin treatments for everything from acne to psoriasis; siblings Sudhir and Samir Mehta, whose Torrent Group flagship Torrent Pharmaceuticals is eyeing acquisitions, more than doubled their wealth to $16.3 billion.

Along with pharma, another booming sector is real estate, with strong demand for homes driving up sales. The fortunes of four wealthiest on the list were up more than $16 billion combined.

One notable real estate gainer was Irfan Razack and his siblings, whose Bengaluru-based developer Prestige Estates Projects rode the boom in India’s tech capital and is now making a mark in Mumbai, the country’s financial hub.

The Godrej family completed a division of their wealth in April and now appear separately for the first time: brothers Adi and Nadir Godrej, who control the listed companies under the Godrej Industries Group; and their cousins Jamshyd Godrej and Smita Crishna Godrej, who control the privately held flagship Godrej and Boyce under the Godrej Enterprises Group.

There are six nonagenarians on the list, most of whom have already passed on the baton to the next generation.

The youngest on the list is Nikhil Kamath, 38 who co-founded and runs discount brokerage Zerodha with his brother Nithin, 45.

The cutoff to make the ranks jumped to $3.3 billion from $2.3 billion in 2023, edging 11 of last year’s billionaires out of the ranks.

India’s 100 richest differs from the world’s billionaires list in that it combines the fortunes of family members such as the Bajaj family and the Burman family whereas they are listed individually in the international rankings that came out in April.

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