Forbes India — November 17, 2017

Richest

10 0 IndIans

The

22 | forbes india december 29, 2017

By NaazNeeN Karmali

A Different Reality

Fortunes soar despite economic hiccups

i

ndia’s turbocharged economy

sputtered in the quarter

ended in June, growing at a

three-year low of 5.7 percent,

due to the aftershocks of last

November’s demonetisation

and uncertainties over the rollout

of a nationwide goods and services

tax. But in a disconnect from current

reality, the stock market scaled

new heights, boosting the fortunes

of the nation’s 100 richest. Their

combined wealth rose by more

than a fourth to $479 billion.

None gained more than oil and

gas tycoon Mukesh Ambani, who

cement ed his decade-long hold on

the No 1 spot by adding a staggering

$15.3 billion to his net worth. He’s

now among Asia’s top five richest.

Shares of Ambani’s Reliance

Industries (owner of Network 18,

Forbes India’s publisher) were boosted

by improved refining margins and

the “Jio effect”: His telecom unit

Reliance Jio’s thundering success in

notching up 130 million subscribers

since its 2016 launch, though it

remains a cash guzzler. By offering

free domestic voice calls, dirt-cheap

data services and virtually free

smartphones, Jio sparked a wave

of consolidation in the market.

Witness the recent merger between

Vodafone India and Idea Cellular,

the latter owned by Kumar Birla

(No 8), another big gainer this year.

More than four-fifths of those

who kept their spot on the list from

last year saw their wealth rise,

with 27 adding $1 billion or more.

Among them, acquisitive auto parts

tycoon Vivek Chaand Sehgal,

whose Motherson Sumi snatched

[o v e r v i e w]

mukesh ambani added a staggering $15.3 billion

Finnish truck-parts maker PKC

Group for $620 million in March.

Veteran investor Radhakishan

Damani returned with a bang,

boosted by the March listing of

his supermarket chain DMart.

The Indian billionaire factory

churned out several new faces (see

page 51), but only half a dozen of them

appear in the top 100 as the minimum

net worth to make the cut rose to $1.46

billion from $1.25 billion last year.

The richest newcomer is cookies-

and-airline tycoon Nusli Wadia.

Other new entrants are Rana Kapoor,

co-founder of Yes Bank, Dinesh

Nandwana of e-governance services

firm Vakrangee, and digital India’s

poster boy, Vijay Shekhar Sharma,

founder of mobile wallet Paytm.

A dozen members are poorer than

a year ago, half of them from the

pharma sector, which is plagued by

challenges (see box, pages 42, 64).

Pharma magnate Dilip Shanghvi

took the biggest hit, with his net

worth falling by $4.8 billion. Shares

of generics maker Lupin, whose

patriarch, Desh Bandhu Gupta, died

in June, also declined, shrinking the

fortune of his heirs. Brothers Shashi

and Ravi Ruia suffered a drop as

their Essar Steel faced bankruptcy

proceedings under India’s stricter

new law (see box, page 42, 88).

These rankings are based on

stock prices and exchange rates as of

September 15. Private companies were

valued by using comparisons with

similar publicly traded companies.

Additional reporting

by Debojyoti Ghosh, Sean Kilachand

and Anuradha Raghunathan