Mukesh Ambani bags India’s richest title; Gautam Adani slips to second spot: Hurun India Rich list

Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, has bagged the richest Indian title with a wealth of $82 billion, according to the 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich list. With 9^th spot, Ambani  is the only Indian to enter the top 10 world’s richest billionaires in the M3M Hurun Rich list. He is the richest telecom entrepreneur on the Hurun Global Rich list.

Gautam Adani slipped to the second spot amongst India’s richest billionaires with a net loss of $28 billion. According to Hurun India, Adani lost ₹3,000 crore every week in 2022-23. With this, Adani has slipped 11 ranks to become the third richest energy entrepreneur in the world.

In India, the number of billionaires reduced to 187 as compared to 215 billionaires last year, thus making the country the third-largest billionaire-producing nation in the world. Hurun India says that Mumbai is home to 66 billionaires, the highest in India, followed by New Delhi with 39 billionaires, and Bengaluru with 21 billionaires.

The Hurun Global Rich List 2023 ranked 3,112 billionaires, down from 3,384 last year, from 2,356 companies and 69 countries. The number of billionaires dropped by 8% and their total wealth dropped by 10% compared with last year. As many as 1,078 billionaires saw their wealth increase, of which 176 billionaires were new faces. 2,479 billionaires saw their wealth decrease or stay the same. Of this, as many as 445 billionaires reported a decline in their wealth. The average age was 66.

“At a critical point in history, when India’s GDP is poised to double by the end of the decade, we are excited about celebrating and benchmarking wealth creation in India with the rest of the world. We at M3M are even further excited about the value-creation potential of the real estate sector. As Andrew Carnegie also said, “Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.” For instance, when the cumulative wealth of Indian billionaires increased by 80%, the wealth of Indian real estate billionaires increased by 150%. It is amazing to see that all the richie-rich in the M3M Hurun Global Rich List are also deeply involved and engaged in the upliftment of the society at large and part of building and strengthening social fabric of the nation,” Pankaj Bansal, Director, M3M India says.

Amongst the sectors, the healthcare sector minted the most number of Indian billionaires followed by consumer goods, and chemicals. Cyrus S Poonawalla, Managing Director of the Serum Institute of India, with a wealth of $27 billion became the richest healthcare billionaire in the world.

Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia of IndiGo airlines, with a wealth of $3.6 billion and $3.3 billion, respectively became the richest aviation billionaires. Byju Raveendran and family of Indian Edtech startup BYJU’s, with a wealth of $3.3 billion has become the world’s second richest entrepreneur in the education sector.

Shiv Nadar and his family of HCL, with a wealth of $26 billion, has become the world’s third-richest software and services billionaire. Nusli Wadia and family of Britannia, with a wealth of $8.2 billion, has become the richest biscuit manufacturer in the world. Kumar Mangalam Birla and family, with a wealth of $14 billion has become the world’s second-richest cement manufacturer.

“In stark contrast to the 2022 M3M Hurun Global Rich List, India is at the top of the league table when it comes to wealth depletion. When countries such as China and USA had 178 and 123 billionaires respectively, who lost more than 1US$billion, India has 41 billionaires who lost more than a billion-dollar YoY in 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List,’ Hurun India says.