The Forbes list of top 100 billionaires in the world is out. India has something to rejoice as five Indians have made it to the list, with three of them in top 50.
The Forbes list of top 100 billionaires in the world is out. India has something to rejoice as five Indians have made it to the list, with three of them in top 50.
All the five billionaires are from different sectors namely Mukesh Ambani of petrochemicals, oil and gas sector, Dilip Shanghvi of pharmaceuticals sector, Azim Premji who belongs to software business, Shiv Nadar of the Information Technology sector and Lakshmir Mittal who owns the steel industry in India.
Bill Gates has topped the list with assets worth $72.9 billion. Well known as the co-founder of world's largest PC software company, Microsoft, he is also the world's richest in tech this year. Furthermore, he is also considered the richest person in every state in the 2015 Forbes list. Following him is Carlos Slim Helu who hails from Mexico. He is ranked no 2 in the Forbes list of the top 100 billionaires this year and is no 1 in Mexico.
Coming to Indian billionaires, the first billionaire to feature in the Forbes list of top 100 billionaires in the world in Mukesh Ambani. Ranked 39 Ambani's net worth stands at $18.9 billion and is India's richest person today. CEO and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani managed to add $2.4 billion to his wealth when his company reported its first drop in net profits in nine quarters, according to Forbes.
Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries is all set to roll out its 4G spectrum services. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries also controls a major media organisation Network18 of which CNBC TV18. CNN IBN and Forbes India is a part of.
According to Forbes, Ambani teamed up with the country's biggest bank, State Bank of India in order to attain a licence to start a payments bank.
Second on the list after Mukesh Ambani with rank 44 is founder of Sun Pharmaceuticals, Dilip Shanghvi. Dilip Shanghvi is the second most richest in India with net assets worth $19.1 billion. Shanghvi founded Sun Pharma in 1983 which is India's most valuable drug company today with a market cap of $31 billion. In 2014, Sun Pharma's shares surged after its acquisition of Ranbaxy laboratories which was supposedly its biggest rival. Shanghvi acquired the company for $4 billion from Japna's Daiichi Sankyo.
According to Forbes, Dilip Shanghvi's Sun Pharma has gone through lot of ups and downs when the US Food and Drug Administration has issued an import alert for Sun's factory in Gujarat. Following that Sun Pharma recalled six drugs over quality issues from United States.
Earlier this year, Shanghvi cracked a $300 million deal with wind power firm Suzlon which gave his company a 23% stake in the acquired firm.
Moving ahead 4 positions at rank 48 is Azim Premji whose net worth stands at $16.8 billion. Chairman of Wipro Limited, Premji is also ranked 13 in the Forbes list of Richest In Tech in the world.
Last quarter, Wipro reported a 10% rise in its revenues to $1.9 billion. According to reports, Premji has stakes in e-retailer company Snapdeal and Myntra which is now a part of Flipkart.
Set up by his father 70 years ago, Wipro was once a Western India Vegetable products company. It is under Azim Premji that the company has now become one of the best software companies in the country.
At position 66 is Shiv Nadar, a famous Indian tech tycoon. He is the co-founder of HCL Group and is ranked no 14 in the Forbes list of the world richest in tech. With net worth $13.4 billion, Nadar's company HCL Technologies had reported a net profit of $1.2 billion in June this year. According to Forbes, the company is diversifying into healthcare and is coming up with a new firm HCL Avitas which already has 10 clinics in Delhi. HCL TalentCare,
Nadar's newest venture is a skill development firm which provides training to fresh graduates, according to Forbes reports.
The fifth and the last person to feature in the list is Lakshmi Mittal who shares his rank with two other billionaires, Iris Fontbona from Chile and Lui Che Woo from Hong Kong.
Ranked 82, Lakshmi Mittal's net worth stands at $11.6 billion today. Known as steel baron, Mittal lost his position as the world's second richest Indian which he had held for a very long time to Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi. He is the Chairman and CEO of the world's biggest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal which saw a surge of $22 million in net profit in the third quarter but the company ended up reporting a net loss of $1.1 billion in 2014.
Mittal tried to clear its debt by selling off assets as a Kentucky steel plant that it owned with Brazil's Gerdau to Nucor, as per Forbes reports. Later, ArcelorMittal had teamed up with Italy's Marcegaglia to bid for loss making Italian steelmaker Ilva but the Italian government postponed the sale.
These four men proved their worth as India's top 5 billionaires and by featuring in the Forbes world's top 100 billionaires list.
To view the complete list, click on this link: The World's Billionaires
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