India's big billionaires: Who is richer, who is poorer?

India's tumbling economic growth is leaving its mark on billionaire promoters' net worth too as the number of billionaires has declined in the past year. Promoters who gained the most in the past one year include Airtel's Sunil Bharti Mittal, DLF's KP Singh, RIL's Mukesh Ambani, Berger Paints' KS Dhingra and Bandhan Bank's CS Ghosh, while promoters who lost the most are Reliance Capital's Anil Ambani, Zee's Subhash Chandra, M&M's Anand Mahindra, Indiabulls' Sameer Gehlaut and Aurobindo Pharma's KN Reddy.

Currently there are a total of 80 promoters whose total wealth exceeds a billion-dollar, a Business Standard report analysing 822 companies listed on BSE500, BSE MidCap or BSE Small Cap, said. The number was 82 in December last year and 91 in March 2018, it said.

A significant rise has been reported in the net worth of top 10 billionaires, and their collective worth is now at $140 billion, reported the daily. The smallest billionaires accounted for just one-fifth of their total wealth. Their collective wealth has seen a decline from $13 billion to $10.5 billion a year ago.

Topping the gainers' list is Bharti Airtel Promoter Sunil Mittal. Despite facing severe losses in the telecom sector, Mittal and his family's net worth, as the daily reported, has seen 83 per cent rise since December last year to $8.6 billion. The primary reason for a major rise in Mittal's wealth is the best performance by Airtel's stock on bourses in the last one year.

Despite tariff war since the entry of Jio in India, the Airtel stock has given 55.8 per cent returns since the beginning of the year, which makes it the third-best performing stock in the telecom sector in the world, Bloomberg reported.

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Due to a decline of around 22 per cent in typical promoters' net worth in the past year, the top 10 promoters' collective wealth jumped to 41.2 per cent from 32.5 per cent, reported the daily.

Among all, 142 out of 571 promoters have a net worth of Rs 100 crore or more by December 6. Because of major gains by big promoters, the total promoters' worth spiked by 3.2 per cent or $13.5 billion.

The ninth richest person in the world and the richest man in Asia, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani has a net worth of $60.5 billion, according to an October report by Forbes. As per the report, infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani had come second in the list as he jumped 8 spots on the list with a net worth of $15.7 billion.

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Edited by Manoj Sharma