While India is home to many billionaires, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is the only Indian business magnate to make it to the top 10 of the Hurun Global Rich List 2022. As per this list, Ambani has a net worth of $103 billion, which is up $20 billion over the last one year and he continues to retain the title of the richest person in India.
The Reliance Industries boss also acquired a premium luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental in New York for $98 million in January this year, Hurun's report said.
Moreover, chairman of Adani Group, Gautam Adani added the most wealth over the last year at ~$49 billion, according to this list. Gautam Adani added wealth at the rate of Rs 6,000 crore every week. Adani’s current net worth stands at $81 billion.
According to this list, Adani is the second richest Indian and 12th richest globally.
Chairman of the Serum Institute of India Cyrus Poonawalla saw a 41 per cent on-year rise in his net worth. Poonawalla has a net worth of $26 billion currently.
Other top names featured in the Hurun report include Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, HCL Technologies founder Shiv Nadar and Hero Cycles Chairman and MD Pankaj Munjal. Shiv Nadar’s net worth went up by $10 billion to $27 billion. This increase in Nadar’s net worth is backed by a 66 per cent increase in HCL’s share price.
Infosys founder Murthy’s net worth went up 35 per cent to $3.1 billion. His son-in-law Rishi Sunak is the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, also the second most powerful person after Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the British government. Hero Cycles' Munjal made it to the list for the first time, however, with a net worth of $1.2 billion given the surge in demand for e-bikes in India.
Notable entrants into the list also include Murli Divi of Divi’s Laboratories and Aditya Birla Group’s Kumar Mangalam Birla. Another notable entrant in this list is textile manufacturer Trident’s Rajinder Gupta. Their wealth grew 72 per cent to $7.4 billion and 61 per cent to $9.2 billion, respectively.
Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma reported a 58 per cent loss in his net worth and was down to $1.3 billion due to the underwhelming Paytm IPO and the subsequent fall in fintech firm's share price in the public market. OYO Rooms’ founder and CEO Ritesh Aggarwal also lost his billionaire status due to the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry.
Future Retail’s Kishore Biyani, who became the fastest wealth creator in 2018, dropped out from this list this year.
Globally, India is in the third position in terms of billionaires as it has a total of 215 billionaires, which is 38 more than what the country had in 2021. According to the list, Mumbai is the billionaire capital of India with 72 billionaires, followed by New Delhi with 51 billionaires. There are 34 other billionaires of Indian origin, living outside of India, led by ArcelorMittal’s LN Mittal.
“India’s billionaires have been doubling every five years, with now more than 200 in India. interestingly, the proportion of NRI billionaires on the 2022 M3M Hurun Global Rich List has halved over the past five years compared with onshore billionaires,” the list read.
Hurun India MD and Chief Researcher Anas Rahman Junaid said, “2022 M3M Hurun Global Rich List is aimed at demonstrating the positioning of Indian wealth creation when compared to rest of the world. The list evidences that India is a rocket ship when it comes to wealth creation.”
Junaid also said, “India ranks third based on not only the number of billionaires but also in terms of number of billionaires who have added at least a billion dollar to their wealth. Over the last 10 years, Indian billionaires added [about] $700 billion to their cumulative wealth -- this is equivalent to Switzerland’s GDP and twice the GDP of UAE!”