India now has a record high number of billionaires

Amid a blockbuster year for IPOs in India—more than 60 companies raised a reported $15.6 billion last year—the total number of Indian billionaires rose to a record 166, up from 140 last year; their combined wealth grew nearly 26% to $750 billion. The pecking order of the top three is a repeat of 2021. Despite a modest 7% boost to his wealth, Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Industries is India’s most valuable company, retained his position as Asia’s richest person—and the tenth richest person in the world—with a net worth of $90.7 billion. Just behind Ambani is infrastructure and commodities tycoon Gautam Adani, who added nearly $40 billion to his fortune to become Asia’s second-richest person. Both Ambani and Adani are leading India’s charge into green energy with multi-billion dollar investments planned for the next decade or so. With the country’s buoyant tech sector notching up record revenue of $200 billion in the recent fiscal year, the wealth of IT entrepreneur Shiv Nadar was up by 22% and he retained his position as the country’s third-richest person. As India raced to protect its citizens against the coronavirus, vaccine billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla’s Serum Institute of India, the country’s biggest producer of Covid-19 vaccines, notched up record revenue and earnings. Buoyed by these super-profits, Poonawalla nearly doubled his wealth to $24.3 billion and moved up four places to No. 4.

Improved steel prices propelled matriarch Savitri Jindal into the top 10 Indians this year; she’s one of 13 Indian women billionaires on the list. Among the 29 new Indian faces is former banker Falguni Nayar, who became the country’s richest self-made woman after the November listing of her beauty and fashion startup Nykaa.

Mukesh Ambani

Ambani, whose fortune was built on oil and gas and petrochemicals, has chalked out a green future for his Reliance Industries with plans to invest $80 billion over 15 years in renewable energy. This includes building a new complex, named after his late father and Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani, consisting of four big factories close to the company’s oil refinery in Jamnagar, in western India.

Gautam Adani

Adani’s wealth soared for the second year in a row, partly on rising shares of listed solar power producer Adani Green Energy. The infrastructure tycoon is doubling down on renewables and says he will invest $70 billion to achieve his ambition of becoming the world’s biggest renewable energy producer by 2030.

Shiv Nadar

Tech pioneer who cofounded the $11.2 billion (revenues) HCL Technologies, one of India’s biggest software services providers, is now chairman emeritus and strategic advisor to the board. His daughter, Roshni Nadar Malhotra, chairs the company, which employs 198,000 people across 52 countries.

Cyrus Poonawalla

A major chunk of the 1.8 billion Covid-19 jabs given to Indians so far have been supplied by Poonawalla’s privately held Serum Institute of India, which manufactures the Covishield vaccine under license from AstraZeneca. In recognition of his efforts, the Indian government recently bestowed the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest civilian awards, on the vaccine billionaire.

Radhakishan Damani

Veteran stock market investor plunged into retailing two decades ago with one grocery store and built it into supermarket chain Avenue Supermarts, which operates 271 D-Mart stores across the country. Damani together with his brother Gopikishan, who’s also a billionaire, reportedly bought a house in south Mumbai last year for more than $100 million.

Lakshmi Mittal

An uptick in steel prices boosted the wealth of the executive chairman of ArcelorMittal, the $76.6 billion (revenue) steel giant. The company reported net profit of $15 billion in 2021, as compared to a $733 million loss in the previous year.

Savitri Jindal

Jindal, chairperson emeritus of the O.P.Jindal group, a steel and power conglomerate named after her late husband, benefited from rising shares of group companies JSW Steel and JSW Energy, the latter up nearly four-fold since last year. Both companies are run by her Mumbai-based son Sajjan Jindal.

Kumar Birla

Birla has chaired the $45 billion (revenue) Aditya Birla Group, a sprawling conglomerate named after his late father, since 1995. Last year, Birla stepped down as chairman of debt-strapped, loss-making telecom firm Vodafone Idea, formed by the 2018 merger between his Idea Cellular and Vodafone Group, and reportedly offered to give up his stake to the government. His group’s retail arm recently bought Reebok’s India operations.

Dilip Shanghvi

Shanghvi’s listed Sun Pharmaceuticals is the world’s fourth-largest maker of specialty generic drugs and India’s most valuable pharma company. Sun gets two-thirds of its $4.5 billion revenue from international markets. In March, the company agreed to pay $485 million to settle a long-standing U.S. lawsuit against subsidiary Ranbaxy Laboratories, which was acquired in 2014. Shanghvi, who founded Sun in 1983 to make psychiatric drugs, still runs the company as managing director.

Uday Kotak

India’s richest self-made banker, converted his finance firm into Kotak Mahindra Bank, after securing a banking license 19 years ago. Investors include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Kotak, who was appointed by the government in 2018 as non-executive chairman of debt-strapped lender Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, stepped down this April.