Mukesh Ambani Loses Asia's Richest Crown to Jack Ma

India's biggest industrialist Mukesh Ambani is no longer Asia's richest man, surrendering the title to Jack Ma since oil prices plummeted along with global stocks.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the rout, exacerbated by growing fears that the spread of the novel coronavirus will push the world into recession, erased $5.8 billion from Ambani's net worth on Monday and pushed him to No. 2 on Asia's list of richest people.

Ma, the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder, who relinquished the No. 1 ranking in mid-2018, is back on top with a $44.5 billion fortune, about $2.6 billion more than Ambani.

Oil plunged the most in 29 years on Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia vowed to pump more in a struggle for market share. The slump comes just as the coronavirus is spurring the first decline in demand in more than a decade. That raises questions about whether Mr. Ambani's flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. will be able to cut net debt to zero by early 2021, as he has pledged. The plan hinges on a proposal to sell a stake in the group's oil and petrochemicals division to Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world's biggest crude producer.

While some of the tech giant Alibaba's companies have been curtailed by a coronavirus, the harm has been mitigated by increased demand for its cloud computing services and mobile apps.

By contrast, the Reliance Sectors have no such silver lining. On Monday, the Indian conglomerate's stock plummeted 12%, most since 2009, raising the fall this year to 26%. So far in 2020, Alibaba's US depositary receipts have dropped by 6.8 per cent.

Source: NDTV