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India Has World’s Third-Largest Number of Billionaires

India Has World’s Third-Largest Number of Billionaires


An employee looks at Indian rupee currency notes at a bank in Mumbai
Indranil Mukherjee/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
For the first time
India has more billionaires than any other country outside the U.S. and China, according to an annual list of the world’s richest individuals released this week.

The 2015 rich list, compiled by China-based luxury publishing group Huran Report, said that India’s richest had benefited from a bump in the value of the stock market and that falls in wealth among Russians and Britons pushed the South Asian nation into the top three for the first time in the history of the rankings.

There are now 97 Indian billionaires compared to 93 Russians who are worth at least one billion dollars, the report said.

The year before, India ranked fifth behind the United Kingdom – where this time the overall wealth of billionaires dropped by 10% in part because of a decline in growth of the London Stock Exchange LSE.LN -0.04%.

So how have India’s richest become billionaires?

The report described 5% of India’s super-wealthy as “self-made, but with a helping hand from parents”, while 9% “inherited a small business and grew it big time.” In China however, the report said 61% of billionaires were “self-made” without any financial support from their families.

Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries 500325.BY -0.09% is still India’s most wealthy: his fortune of $20 billion means he remains 41st on the global list for a second year running. He is the only Indian to make it into the top 50.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the richest man on the list with a fortune of $85 billion, followed by Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim with $82 billion and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett with $76 billion. Collectively their fortunes total $244 billion, equivalent to $100,000 earned a minute over the past year, according to the report, which offers a snapshot of wealth held by the world’s richest people, as calculated on Jan. 17 this year.

Russia’s stagnating economy and tumbling currency as well as Western-imposed sanctions in response to the conflict in the Ukraine and a fall in the oil price saw 10 Russians slip out of the list. Even among those Russians that continue to be listed, the majority (60%) saw their wealth plummet. Worst effected was Vladimir Yevtushenkov of conglomerate Sistema who lost a staggering $8.1 billion, or 77% of his fortune, over the past year.

Conversely, most of the super-rich in India saw their bank balances grow thanks to a 32% gain in the value of the Indian stock market over the past year, the report said. The biggest gainer in percentage terms was Anand Mahindra of conglomerate Mahindra Group, whose wealth climbed 80% year on year.

Meanwhile, 27 Indians were added to the list this year. Anand Burman, chairman of consumer goods maker Dabur India Ltd.500096.BY +0.68% was the highest ranked debutant from India at 201st.

It wasn’t a good year for every Indian in the club however. Of the 20 Indian billionaires who suffered a loss in their fortunes in the past year, India’s wealthiest woman, Savriti Jindal of Jindal Steel and Power, was hit the hardest, with a fall of 49% ($2.6 billion) in her family’s wealth, the report said.

Most of India’s billionaires – who have a combined fortune of $266 billion – have accumulated their wealth in the manufacturing and pharmaceutical sectors, the report said. Globally, most billionaires are involved in the technology, media and telecommunications industry. Almost 300 made their fortunes in this industry, including 12 Indians such as Wipro’s Azim Premji and HCL Technologies '532281.BY +0.01% Shiv Nadar.

The U.S. and China dominate the list, collectively accounting for almost half of the world’s 2,089 billionaires. The U.S. has 537 and China – which added more billionaires over the past year than any other country – has 430.

New York has the highest concentration of billionaires of any city in the world with 91 residing in the U.S. state, according to the report. Mumbai, India’s financial capital, has 40 people worth over a billion U.S. dollars making it the sixth most billionaire-rich city in the world, one spot behind London.

As a continent, Asia leads the way with 943 billionaires, Huran Report said, including 56% of the new entrants.

Top Indians

41. Mukesh Ambani, $20 billion dollars, Reliance Industries, Energy

53. Dilip Shanghvi, $17 billion, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.524715.BY +1.88%, Pharma

60. Pallonji Mistry and family, $16 billion, Tata Sons, Manufacturing

74. Azim Premji, $14 billion, Wipro, Technology

104. Shiv Nadar, $11billion, HCL Technologies, Technology

120. Kumar Birla, $10billion, Aditya Birla Group, Cement

120. Sunil Mittal and family, $10billion, Bharti Airtel Ltd., Telecom

201. Anand Burman and family, $5.8billion, Dabur Ayurvedic Natural Health Care Products India, Fast moving consumer goods

218. Uday Kotak, $5.4 billion, Kotak Mahindra Banking

240. Gautam Adani, $4.8 billion, Adani Enterprise Construction

New Indian Entrants

201. Anand Burman and family, $5.8 billion, Dabur Ayurvedic Natural Health Care Products India, Fast moving consumer goods

358. PV Ramaprasad Reddy, $3.1 billion, Aurobindo Pharma, Pharma

403. Nitin Sandesara, $2.8 billion, Sandesara Group, Energy

447. Vivek Chaand Sehgal, $2.7 billion, Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd., Manufacturing

932. Nusli Wadia, $1.9 billion, Britannia Industries, Fast moving consumer goods

India Has World’s Third-Largest Number of Billionaires - India Real Time - WSJ

Unlike the Ambanis India's billionaires should follow the Tata model.
Tatas over Ambanis any day.
 
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The key to India's success is avoiding wasteful spending on infrastructure and basic household sanitation.
 
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This is childish to believe that billionaires pay taxes and govt in return make policies for the poor. had it been so, 70% of the indians werent on streets or sleeping hungry.
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Quite a tall claim....any source to backup that claim.
 
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This is childish to believe that billionaires pay taxes and govt in return make policies for the poor. had it been so, 70% of the indians werent on streets or sleeping hungry.

anyway, in our land, the rich dont pay tax at all.. we are indirectly taxed.. a poor man who earns 6000, pays the same tax as the person who earns in millions.
Ofcourse they pay taxes. They use loopholes to escape paying as much as they should, but they pay taxes nonetheless and much more than most other Indians.

And yes, GoI does spend for the poor, which is India has been second highest in reducing poverty and hunger after China. This is slow and riddled with corruption, but the trend lines are clear. Poverty and hunger are reducing in India as the decades go by.

Though @Norwegian is also partially right. This news is more a mixed bag.
Good that there is increasing prosperity - these billionaires and millionaires are the ones who invest in factories and roads which generate mass jobs..and bad because it leads to a rising inequality.

The GoI must improve their social service delivery so as to balance out and ensure that the poorest get the food, shelter and education they deserve.
 
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My Bad!! Will some one lend me 999000000 INR, so that I can become 98th billionaire?

@BDforever @DRAY @Skull and Bones @levina @SarthakGanguly @scorpionx @wolfschanzze @Imran Khan or anybody, Pleaseeeeeeee!!:blink::D

I mean just lend me. Next day I will repay it back after my name is in the list, have trust in me!!
Are the other members mentioned in your post billionaires???
If so I'll also like to try your idea. :devil:

on topic:
This list makes me snigger as an Indian.
Look at the wide gap between the number of billionaires in China and India or look at the tiny difference between the number of billionaires in India & UK, and then you will know where we stand.
 
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The measure of Millionaires is a more balanced reflect of the overall wealthiness of a nation.

By number of millionaire households:
Countries with the Most Millionaires - Yahoo Finance
Top 10 Countries with the Most Millionaires in the World

1) USA - 4,715,000
2) Japan - 1,230,000
3) China - 670,000
4) United Kingdom - 485,000
5) Germany - 430,000
6) Italy - 300,000
7) Switzerland - 283,000
8) France - 280,000
9) Taiwan - 230,000
10) Hong Kong - 205,000

By density of millionaire population:
The countries with the densest millionaire populations
1) Singapore - 17.1%
2) Qatar - 14.3%
3) Kuwait - 11.8%
4) Switzerland 9.5%
5) Hong Kong 8.8%
6) UAE - 5%
7) USA - 4.3%
8) Israel - 3.6%
9) Taiwan - 3.2%
10) Bahrain - 3.2%

Findings:

- Top 10 countries with most millionaires are in USA, East Asia (4 countries) and Western Europe (5 countries)

- The wealthiest population are in USA, East Asia (3 countries), Middle East (5 countries), Western Europe (1 country)

- The countries that appear in both charts are: USA, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Switzerland

- In Asia, Japan and China have large quantity of millionaires, while Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan have the wealthiest population.
 
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My Bad!! Will some one lend me 999000000 INR, so that I can become 98th billionaire?

@BDforever @DRAY @Skull and Bones @levina @SarthakGanguly @scorpionx @wolfschanzze @Imran Khan or anybody, Pleaseeeeeeee!!:blink::D

I mean just lend me. Next day I will repay it back after my name is in the list, have trust in me!!

Thik hai, I am sending you a cheque of the Swiss Bank of India. :D

i will give with one condition, make me sultan of whole world- make obama and others to call me sultan :D

Give me my Tishu, and I will make you the Sultan of Brunei with unlimited access to his harem. :D
 
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Indian billionaires club getting bigger: Has 3rd highest number of super rich in world- Poverty rises directly/Dumb RSS BJP take pride!
 
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Indian billionaires club getting bigger: Has 3rd highest number of super rich in world- Poverty rises directly/Dumb RSS BJP take pride!
I am an AAP supporter,but dont degrade AAP by making posts like these
 
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LOL. Its not a good sign to have many billionaires. It only means that more and more national wealth is concentrated in fewer hands aka. wealth inequality is increasing in India. What you need is more millionaires or more people reaching lakhs of RS worth of fortunes, not more billionaires! :D

It means that entrepreneurs (the brains of any successful economy) are free to operate within the nation. They invest, build, plan, innovate. Not the government.

If the corporations can expand and grow, the economy will, and thus, more jobs will be created.

If you look at statistics you will also see that the number of people living below the poverty line has also dropped sharply
 
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