Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with a total wealth of $19.5 billion and NRI steel baron Lakshmi Mittal with a total wealth of $19.3 billion. topped the list of 24 Indians on the 2009 Forbes World Billionaire list. In the global list, Mukesh is ranked at the 7th position, while Mittal closely followed him at the 8th position.
Both Mukesh Ambani and Mittal saw over half their net worth wiped out. While Mukesh, who heads Reliance Industries, saw his fortune shrink from $43 billion to $19.5 billion, Steel czar Mittal's wealth plummeted from $45 billion to $19.3 billion. ArcelorMittal stock, which makes up bulk of his fortune, is at a four-year low, the Forbes said. Mittal is a long-time resident of London and also Europe's richest resident.
As many as 29 Indians lost their billionaire status entirely as India's stock market tumbled 44 per cent in the past year and the Indian rupee depreciated 18 per cent against the dollar.
At the third position, Mukesh's brother Anil Ambani, with a wealth of $ 10.1 billion, is the biggest loser. He lost $ 32 billion last year as the market capitalization of his companies, Reliance Communication (RCOM), Reliance Power and Reliance Capital collapsed. Besides the market meltdown, Anil's RCOM also took a hit when estranged brother Mukesh helped derail its merger with South Africa's MTN last July. RCOM fell by two-thirds last year.
Bharti group chairman Sunil Mittal is the fourth richest Indian with a total wealth of USD 7.7 billion followed by Wipro's Azim Premji with a net worth of USD 5.7 billion.
Shashi and Ravi Ruia (Essar) with a net worth of $ 5.6 billion and Kushal Pal Singh (DLF) with a total wealth of $ 5 billion stood next in the list.
The other Indians in the billionaires list include, Kumar Mangalam Birla ($4.2 billion), Adi Godrej and family ($3.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi ($3 billion), Savitri Jindal ($2.7 billion), Malvinder and Shivinder Singh ($2.6 billion), G M Rao ($2.1 billion), Micky Jagtiani ($2 billion), Gautam Adani ($1.8 billion) and Shiv Nadar ($1.7 billion). Cyrus Poonawalla ($1.5 billion), Anil Agarwal ($1.5 billion), Uday Kotak ($1.2 billion), Kalanithi Maran ($1.2 billion), Chandru Raheja ($1.2 billion), Subhash Chandra ($1.1 billion) and Anurag Dikshit ($1 billion)
Bill Gates lost $18 billion but regained his title as the world's richest man. America's most beloved investor Warren Buffett stood at the second position after seeing his fortune decline $25 billion, as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell nearly 50% in 12 months. Buffett was ranked as the richest person in the world in last year's list, followed by Carlos Slim and Gates at second and third positions respectively.
"After slipping in recent years, the U.S. is regaining its dominance as a repository of wealth. Americans account for 44% of the money and 45% of the list's slots, up seven and three percentage points from last year, respectively," says the report.
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