Mukesh Ambani Is Now among World's Top-10 Richest

Ambani, Asia’s wealthiest man, joins club of world’s 10 richest Asia's richest man has entered a new league of wealth.

The net wealth of Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., soared to $64.5 billion, rendering him the only Asian tycoon in the world's top 10 wealthiest community, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires List. He surpassed Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp. and France's Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the richest individual, to hit the No. 9 position.

Ambani, who controls 42 per cent of Reliance, has gained from a increase in spending in the digital arm of the group, Jio Platforms Ltd., who Reliance said had rendered net debt free of charge ahead of the deadline of March 2021. The Indian conglomerate 's stock doubled from a low in March, even as many billionaires on the list were hit by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

While the Indian economy "has been almost decimated" during the lockdown to control the spread of Covid-19, "Mr. Ambani 's companies (especially the telecommunications giant Jio) have thrived and his personal wealth has increased substantially," said Jayati Ghosh, chair of the Center for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

A media representative for Reliance declined to comment on Ambani's fortune.

Economic Divide

The rise of the 63-year-old as India heads for its worst-ever recession is a reminder of the nation's deep economic divide, in which the top 10% hold more than three-quarters of the total wealth, and where most new fortune creation stays in the hands of the richest 1%. Ambani lives in a 27-story mansion in Mumbai, known as Antilia, that has three rooftop helipads, parking for 168 cars, a 50-seat movie theater, a grand ballroom with crystal chandeliers, three floors of Babylon-inspired hanging gardens, a yoga studio, and a health spa and fitness center.

While a crash in oil prices caused uncertainty in a stake sale of Reliance's oil and chemicals division, in just two months Jio managed to attract some $15 billion -- more than half the investment into telecom companies worldwide this year. Facebook Inc., General Atlantic, Silver Lake Partners, KKR & Co. and Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund are among those trying to get a slice of one of the world's fastest-growing online commerce markets. A June report by Sanford C. Bernstein predicted that Jio is likely to capture 48% of India's mobile subscriber market share by 2025.

In the latest potential deal slated to bolster Ambani's e-commerce ambitions, Reliance is close to acquiring stakes in some units of Future Group, which already has a partnership with Amazon.com Inc., people familiar with the matter have said.

Ambani got his start in the family's business in the early 1980s, when his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, summoned him back to India to oversee construction of a polyester mill after a year at Stanford Business School. The Ambanis began to buy up suppliers as well as petrochemical plants and oil refineries and eventually built the company into a fabric, textiles and energy empire. Dhirubhai died of a stroke in 2002 without leaving a will, triggering a feud between Mukesh and his brother, Anil.

In a settlement brokered by their mother, the brothers split up the family business. Mukesh retained control over refining , petrochemicals, oil and gas and textile operations, while Anil took over telecommunications, asset management, entertainment and power generation. In 2013, the brothers announced a $220 million pact to share a fiber-optic network, their first deal since splitting the Reliance empire. Parts of Anil's operations have since struggled, with a unit of his Reliance Communications Ltd. filing for bankruptcy last year.

Mukesh revels in being the biggest. In India, Reliance officially became just that last year, when it surpassed state-owned Indian Oil Corp. to become the country's largest company by revenue. At Reliance's annual shareholder meeting in August, which is covered like a national event -- including by its media and entertainment arm, Network18 -- Ambani called it the "golden decade of Reliance." He celebrated the group's growing list of superlatives: the largest telecom enterprise by subscribers, revenues and profit; a retail arm larger than all other major retailers combined; an oil giant that makes India's largest export.

"We are also incubating newer growth engines," Ambani said at the time, adding that he hoped the digital-driven expansion could be more inclusive. "No power on earth can stop India from rising higher."

At least on the global wealth ranking, that seems to be the case.

Source: Bloomberg