In a dramatic shift in the pecking order at the top, Mukesh Ambani has reclaimed the No. 1 position on the 2023 Forbes list of India’s 100 Richest.
ThecollectivewealthofIndia’s100Richestwasflatat$799billionthisyear.
India is on a high after hosting the G20 Summit in New Delhi this September andbecoming the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon.
Reflecting this sentiment, India’sstockmarketrose14 per centsincefortuneswerelastmeasured.
Howeverthatjump,temperedbyaweaker rupee, was not reflected in the collective net worth of India’s 100 Richest, whichflatlinedat$799billion.
MukeshAmbani,whotransformedhisRelianceIndustriesintoadiversifiedconglomerate,reclaimedtheNo.1spotwithanetworthof$92billion.
Shortlyafterspinningoff and listing Jio Financial Services, which has an asset management joint venture withBlackRock,Ambani cemented his succession plan by appointing histhree children toReliance’sboardasnon-executivedirectorsinAugust.
The fortune of infrastructure magnate Gautam Adani, who rose meteorically toovertake Ambani as India’s richest person for the first time last year, reversed dramaticallyafterareportbyUSshortsellerHindenburgResearchinJanuarysenthisgroup’ssharestumbling.
Despiterecoveringsomewhatsince,hisnetworth,whichincludesthatofhisfamily, fell by a whopping $82 billion to $68 billion — down the most in both dollar andpercentageterms–andheslipsbackintosecondplace.
SoftwaretycoonShivNadarclimbstwospotstoreturntoNo.3withafortuneof $29.3 billion, as shares of HCL Technologies jumped 42 per cent in the past year amid a tech rebound.
Matriarch Savitri Jindal, of the O.P. Jindal Group, a power and steel conglomerate, ranksNo. 4 with $24 billion, up 46 per cent, thanks partly to the September IPO of ports unit JSWInfrastructure,byhersonSajjanJindal.
RoundingoutthetopfiveisRadhakishanDamaniofAvenueSupermarts,whosefortunedeclinedto$23billionfrom$27.6billionpreviously.
Naazneen Karmali, Asia Wealth Editor and India Editor ofForbes Asia, said: “India is riding high and is considered a hot spot by global investors. That buoyancy has made the elite club of India’s 100 Richest even more exclusive this year, with the minimum net worth to make the cutoff rising to a record $2.3 billion.”
The biggest percentage gainer this year is Inder Jaisinghani at No. 32 with $6.4 billion.His family’s net worth nearly doubled as his wires and cables company, Polycab India,benefited from increasing electrification.
Pharma brothers Ramesh and Rajeev Juneja got a handsome 64 per cent boost from the May listing of their Mankind Pharma, bringing them to No. 29 with $6.9 billion.
There are three new entrants this year: Renuka Jagtiani, chairwoman of LandmarkGroup, a Dubai-headquartered retailing giant, enters the list at No. 44 with $4.8 billion,followingthepassingofherhusbandMickyJagtianiinMay.
AlsonewtothelististheDanifamily (No. 22, $8 billion) of Asian Paints, heirs of patriarch Ashwin Dani, who died inSeptember.
ThethirdnewcomerisgarmentexporterK.P.Ramasamy(No.100,$2.3billion),founderandchairmanofK.P.RMill.
Among the seven returnees this year is Ranjan Pai (No. 86, $2.75 billion), who cashedout $1 billion from selling part of his stake in hospital chain Manipal Health Enterprises toSingapore’s Temasek.
Notable among the eight drop-offs are ed tech couple Byju Raveendranand Divya Gokulnath, whose firm Byju’s saw its valuation marked down drastically amidmyriadchallenges.
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