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Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani overtook Adani Group founder Gautam Adani to become the richest Indian with a wealth of over USD 82 billion, according to the 2023 Hurun Global Rich List released on Wednesday.
Ranked ninth, Ambani is the only Indian to feature on the list of top 10 billionaires across the world.
On the other hand, Adani, who runs a sprawling ports-to-energy conglomerate, saw his ranking plunge drastically to 53 on the list. The business tycoon witnessed his wealth drop by more than 60 per cent from his peak following a damning report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research, which accused the Adani Group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud.
Additionally, Adani has slipped to the second position on the richest Indian list with his wealth now around USD 53 billion.
However, Adani and Ambani rank amongst the biggest wealth losers, by absolute value, in the world.
According to the Hurun list, Cyrus Poonawalla, the founder of Serum Institute of India, is the third richest Indian with a wealth of around USD 27 billion.
Among other Indians, Shiv Nadar & family of HCL Technologies emerged as the fourth richest Indian with a wealth of USD 26 billion. With a donation of Rs 1,161 crore, Shiv Nadar also reclaimed the “India’s most generous” title by Hurun.
With USD 25 billion, Lakshmi N Mittal of ArcelorMittal is the wealthiest Indian Immigrant and the fifth richest Indian.
SP Hinduja & family, with a wealth of USD 20 billion, ranks sixth in India while Dilip Shanghvi & family of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries came at seventh position with a wealth of USD 17 billion.
DMart founder Radhakishan Damani & family (USD 16 billion), Aditya Birla’s Kumar Mangalam Birla & family (USD 14 billion) and Kotak Mahindra Bank director Uday Kotak (USD 14 billion) are at the eighth, ninth and tenth positions in India, respectively.
Comparison of rankings five and ten years ago.
According to the other findings of the report, in the total number of billionaires, Asia is ahead of North America and Europe as it accounted for 49 per cent of the total 3,112 billionaires.
Over 9.2 per cent of the total billionaires were associated with consumer goods, followed by 9.1 per cent in financial services.
Healthcare overtook real estate to rank the third-best business or source of income for the billionaires.
The last year was good for fertilizers, commodity trading, iron, steel, oil and gas industries, soft drinks, confectionary, casinos, hotels, sports clubs and luxury goods.
However, businesses in semiconductors, cloud solutions, cybes security, payment systems, e-commerce, batteries and new energy struggled.
In terms of the number of billionaires who have added one billion dollars or more over the last year, India occupies sixth rank.
Globally, the number of billionaires has come down to 3,112 from 3,384 last year.
China is leading the world with the most number of billionaires followed by the US and India. Currently, India contributes 8 per cent of the total global billionaire population compared to 4.9 per cent five years ago.
