Tough year for India's super-rich; Shanghvi, Premji lose the most

L N Mittal storms back to the global billionaire club

London-based steel baron L N Mittal regained his listing in the billionaires’ league table for 2016 and came in at the second spot, as his company’s market value went up by $5 billion, or 86 per cent. Mittal had dropped out of the list in 2015, as the global commodity meltdown had roiled metal stocks last year. With metal stocks bouncing back, his fortunes also improved in line with the company’s performance in the stock markets.

However, for India’s rich, it was a bad year with seven billionaires in the top 10 losing wealth in 2016, compared with their wealth in 2015. Take for example, Sun Pharmaceutical promoter Dilip Shanghvi — he lost a whopping $4 billion of personal wealth, as the company faced quality concerns over its production processes and plants from the US drug regulator. Information technology (IT) major Wipro’s promoter Azim Premji was another top loser, as he lost $2.9 billion of value during the year. Investors of IT firms are jittery over the impact of Donald Trump’s victory with the President-in-waiting’s promise to restrict immigration for Indian IT workers. 

Reliance Industries promoter Mukesh Ambani again topped the list with a marginal increase, as the market value of his companies increased over the previous year. The next year will be crucial for Ambani, as his latest venture Jio will start churning money for the company. Eighty seven-year old Pallonji Mistry, whose son Cyrus Mistry is currently involved in a bitter battle with Tata Group patriarch Ratan Tata, has come in at third place with the value of his unlisted companies  estimated at $13.4 billion. Pallonji Mistry draws his wealth from 18.5 per cent stake in unlisted Tata Sons, which, in turn, holds stake in India’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, and his engineering, construction and real estate business, among others. The statistics by Bloomberg exclude the Hinduja Brothers and Sunil Mittal — who top listings by rival publications.