Gautam Adani Emerges As Biggest Dollar Gainer In Forbes Rich List 2024

Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani emerged as the biggest dollar gainer on Thursday among the list of Forbes India's 100 richest tycoons, with the family's net worth rising to $116 billion.

Along with his brother Vinod Adani, Gautam Adani added $48 billion to climb up to the second position on the list. The Forbes report said Mr Adani posted a strong recovery from “last year's short-selling attack”. This amounts to a 71 percent rise in wealth.

Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani's wealth increased by $27.5 billion to bring his total net worth to $119.5 billion. Mr Ambani's wealth rose by 30 percent, even as he emerged as the second biggest dollar gainer this year. Reliance had announced a bonus issue of shares as a Diwali gift to Reliance investors.

In a record-breaking year, the collective wealth of India's 100 richest tycoons surpassed the trillion dollar milestone for the first time as more than 80 per cent of the country's richest tycoons are now wealthier than they were a year ago and twice as rich as they were in 2019, the Forbes report showed.

More than 80% of the richest Indians are wealthier with 58 of them adding $1 billion or more to their respective net worths. Half a dozen fortunes swelled by more than $10 billion each, including the top five, who as a group gained nearly $120 billion. The top 12 list members account for roughly half the group's combined wealth.

India's richest woman Savitri Jindal, matriarch of steel-to-power conglomerate OP Jindal Group, whose son Sajjan Jindal recently made an ambitious foray into electric vehicles with MG Motor, moved up to No. 3 for the first time. She's one of nine women on the list, up from eight a year ago.

The new woman in the ranks is Mahima Datla, who controls privately-held vaccine producer Biological E. She's one of four newcomers to the list, a group that includes B Partha Saradhi Reddy, founder of Hetero Labs, a maker of generic medicines and pharma ingredients.

The two other new faces are Harish Ahuja, whose apparel maker Shahi Exports supplies to labels such as H&M and Calvin Klein; India's booming IPO market made Surender Saluja, founder and chairman of Premier Energies, which makes solar panels and modules, a multi-billionaire after his company got listed in September.

Dilip Shanghvi, founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, jumped three spots to No. 5 with $32.4 billion on rising demand for its skin treatments for everything from acne to psoriasis; siblings Sudhir & Samir Mehta, whose Torrent Group flagship Torrent Pharmaceuticals is eyeing acquisitions, more than doubled their wealth to $16.3 billion.

Four prominent property fortunes on the list were up more than $16 billion combined. Another notable real estate gainer was Irfan Razack and his siblings, whose Bangalore-based developer Prestige Estates Projects rode the boom in India's tech capital and is now making a mark in Mumbai, the country's financial hub. The family is one of five members who had previously dropped out of the ranks but rejoined after a hiatus. The other four made their fortunes in everything from operating airports to making industrial explosives.

The storied Godrej family finally concluded a division of their holdings between two factions in April and as a result they appear separately for the first time: brothers Adi & Nadir Godrej, who control the listed companies under the Godrej Industries Group, and their cousins Jamshyd Godrej and Smita Crishna Godrej, who control their privately held flagship Godrej & Boyce under the Godrej Enterprises Group.

The youngest list member is Nikhil Kamath, 38 who cofounded and runs discount brokerage Zerodha with his brother Nithin, 45.

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