Forbes: Mukesh Ambani regains Asia's richest person spot
His net worth is now $47.2 billion and is the second richest Indian behind Ambani
Mukesh Ambani has regained his spot as Asia's richest person after rival Gautam Adani tumbled to No. 24, Forbes said in its Billionaire 2023 list released on Tuesday.
His net worth is now $47.2 billion and is the second richest Indian behind Ambani.
With a net worth of $83.4 billion, Ambani, 65, was ranked at No. 9 on the world billionaire list.
Ambani, it said, sidestepped speculation about succession by giving his children key roles last year: Older son Akash is the chairman of telecom arm Jio Infocomm; daughter Isha is the head of the retail business; and younger son Anant works in Reliance's new energy ventures.
The 25 richest people in the world are worth a collective $2.1 trillion, according to Forbes' World's Billionaires list, down a combined $200 billion from $2.3 trillion in 2022.
No one lost more than Jeff Bezos as Amazon shares crashed by 38 per cent.
The drop lopped $57 billion from Bezos' fortune and knocked him from No. 2 in the world in 2022 to No. 3 this year.
This year's second-biggest loser, Elon Musk, had it worse. He lost his title of world's richest person after his pricey purchase of Twitter, which he funded in part by the sale of Tesla shares, helping to spook investors.
Musk, who is worth $39 billion less than a year ago, is now No. 2.
With $211 billion net worth, Bernard Arnault, the French luxury goods tycoon, tops the list for the first time on the back of a banner year at LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Tiffany & Co., among others.
Musk, 51, with $180 billion net worth, is ranked No. 2, followed by Jeff Bezos with $114 billion net worth.
The majority of that decline came from one high-profile saga: the stock rout of companies in the Adani Group, following a January report of fraud allegations by short-seller Hindenburg Research (allegations the Adani Group has denied).
With the sheen off the tech sector, software magnate Shiv Nadar's fortune tumbled 11 per cent from a year ago to $25.6 billion, but he retained his position as the country's third richest person.
Despite declining demand for Covid-19 vaccines, India's vaccine king Cyrus Poonawalla, whose portfolio includes listed financial services firm Poonawalla Fincorp as well as privately held vaccine giant Serum Institute of India, held onto his spot as the country's fourth richest person, though his net worth fell 7 per cent from a year ago to $22.6 billion.
Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal was ranked at No. 5 followed by OP Jindal Group matriarch Savitri Jindal, Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi and Radhakishan Damani, whose Avenue Supermarts owns the DMart retail chain.
Kumar Birla is ranked at No. 9 and Uday Kotak at No. 10.
Among the newcomers is the youngest Indian billionaire, 36-year-old Nikhil Kamath, who co-founded discount brokerage Zerodha with his older sibling Nithin Kamath (also a newcomer). The Bengaluru brothers are worth $ 1.1 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively.
Four people returned to the list this year after previously falling off, including Keshub Mahindra, chairman emeritus of Mahindra & Mahindra.
The 99 year-old patriarch is the oldest Indian billionaire and has a net worth of $1.2 billion.
Twenty-three people from last year's list didn't make the cut this time, including metals magnate Anil Agarwal, who's weighed down by debt, and payments pioneer Vijay Shekhar Sharma, whose One97 Communications has seen its shares steadily fall since its IPO in late 2021 amid increasing competition for its Paytm payments app and prominent investors, such as SoftBank and Alibaba, paring their stakes.
