India is home to the fifth largest group of billionaires in the world and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, is the country’s richest man with a personal fortune of USD 18 billion, says a report.
According China-based research firm Hurun’s 2014 global rich list, Mukesh Ambani was ranked 41st in the list that was topped by Bill Gates, whose personal networth stood at a whopping USD 68 billion.
Other noted Indians in the list include Lakshmi N Mittal ranked 49th with a personal net worth of USD 17 billion.
Dilip Sanghvi of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Wipro’s Azim Premji both ranked 77th with a personal wealth of USD 13.5 billion each. Tata Sons’ Pallonji Mistry ranked 93rd with a personal wealth of USD 12 billion.
SP Hinduja & family was ranked 93rd on the list, with a net worth of USD 12 billion.
In the global rich list, Gates was followed by Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett (2nd) with a personal wealth of USD 64 billion and Amancio Ortega of Inditex was ranked 3rd with USD 62 billion fortune.
The fourth position was claimed by Carlos Slim Helu & family (USD 60 billion) while Oracle’s Larry Ellison with USD 60 billion was ranked fifth.
The report said that during the past year the Indian rupee weakened 12 percent against the US Dollar, making it harder for Indians to make the cut-off.
Despite the currency fluctuations, India has improved its position over last year. In the 2014 Hurun global rich list, the country is ranked fifth with 70 billionaires, 17 more than 2013.
Interestingly, India has higher number of these super rich individuals than Germany, Switzerland, France and Japan.
The combined wealth of the Indians billionaires comes to a staggering USD 390 billion.
