Hurun India and M3M India released the 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List, a ranking of the US-Dollar billionaires in India. The list reflects the financial position of the billionaires as of 14 January 2023.
Hurun’s calculations reveal that Adani wealth dropped $28 billion to $53 billion, losing the second-richest Asian title to Zhong Shanshan of YST. The loss of wealth followed a crash in share prices of group companies after publication of short-seller Hindenburg’s report in January. Before the report, Adani was briefly the world’s second-richest person.
With a wealth of US$27bn, Cyrus Poonawalla, 81 of Serum Institute of India, is the third richest person in India. Vaccine King Cyrus Poonawalla is the richest healthcare billionaire in the world.
According to the list the world lost five billionaires every week in the last year. The number of billionaires globally have declined by 269 to 3112. This only the second time in the last ten years that the number has declined from the previous year.
Every billionaire in the top 10 list saw wealth erosion. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos saw his net worth decline by $70bn to $118 billion. Bezos lost more than Adani and Ambani put together. Elon Musk
Given the size of the market, India has many billionaires who are among sectoral leaders. For instance, Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia of Indigo Airlines are the wealthiest aviation billionaires with a net worth of $3.3 billion.
Byju Raveendran is the second-richest entrepreneur from the education sector worldwide while Mukesh Ambani is the richest telecom entrepreneur. Kumar Mangalam Birla, who ranks 136th among billionaires, is the second-richest cement manufacturer and Nusli Wadia is the richest biscuit manufacturer.
India which has 187 billionaires is increasing its presence in the list. Over the last five years, India’s contribution to the global billionaire population has been steadily increasing. Currently India contributes 8% of the total global billionaire population compared to 4.9% five years ago.
