Mukesh Ambani richest Indian billionaire in Forbes 2016 list

Mukesh Ambani, with a net worth of $19.3 billion, is ranked 36 worldwide and retained his position as India’s richest person

Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani once again tops the list of 84 Indian billionaires in the Forbes annual ranking of the world’s billionaires for 2016 announced on Tuesday. The 84 Indians to make it to the coveted Billionaires club include tycoons from diverse sectors ranging from real estate to auto to consumer goods and pharma.

Ambani, with a net worth of $19.3 billion, is ranked 36 worldwide and retained his position as India’s richest person.

The top 10 Indian billionaires

Ambani is followed by Indian pharma magnate Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharmaceuticals, with a net worth of $16.9 billion, who ranked number 2 among Indian billionaires.

In fact, the pharma sector dominates the list with 20 pharma billionaires. The list includes three pharma newcomers—Leena Tewari (ranked 54 with a net worth of $1.9 billion) of USV; Mannalal Agrawal (ranked 84 with a net worth of $1.35 billion) of Ajanta Pharma; and Chirayu Amin (ranked 93, with a net worth of $1.22 billion) of Alembic Pharma.

The next two spots are taken by tech tycoons Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar. Premji, chairman of Wipro Ltd, has a net worth of $15 billion and is third richest Indian billionaire. Premji is a philanthropist who has pledged nearly half of his stakeholding in Wipro to a charitable trust and has reportedly said that rich Indians must give away their wealth and not leave it for the next generation.

Shiv Nadar, co-founder of HCL Group, is the fourth Indian billionaire, with a net worth of $11.1. billion. Nadar’s newest venture is HCL TalentCare, a skills development firm that provides training to new graduates. Besides, he has also set up a $500 million fund with a partner to invest in start-ups and US healthcare tech firms.

At rank 5 is Cyrus Poonawalla, India’s vaccine king with a net worth of $8.5 billion. Poonawalla runs the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which, according to Forbes, is expected to report record profits of $350 million on revenues of $600 million for the fiscal year ending March 2016. Poonawalla is investing $150 million to expand Serum’s capacity to make a range of new vaccines, including one for dengue

The next five billionaires are steel baron Laxmi Mittal, India’s first self-made billionaire banker Uday Kotak, Kumar Birla of the Aditya Birla group, Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal and pharma company Lupin’s Desh Bandhu Gupta.

The debutant billionaires

Father and son Kapil and Rahul Bhatia’s debut on the Forbes billionaires list with a net worth of $3.1 billion is thanks to the October IPO of their InterGlobe Aviation, which owns IndiGo, India’s largest airline with a recent market cap of $4.3 billion. Rahul co-founded the airline a decade ago with airline veteran Rakesh Gangwal, also a billionaire. With its reputation for punctuality, the budget carrier flew past rivals.

The women billionaires

Five women make it to the Indian billionaires list. They are Savitri Jindal of the OP Jindal group; Indu Jain, the matriarch of Bennett, Coleman & Co.; Smita Crishna-Godrej, who belongs to the Godrej clan and makes her maiden appearance on the billionaires list by virtue of one-fifth stake in the family assets; Leena Tiwari, who owns privately-held Indian generics-maker USV, known for its drugs for diabetes and heart diseases; and Vinod Gupta, wife of Qimat Rai Gupta of Havells India, who died in November 2014. Gupta inherited her husband’s shares in the electrical firm, though she doesn’t hold an executive or board position.

The bird billionaire

Then, there are those who have made it to the list because of their lineage. For instance, bird lover and photographer Rishad Naoroji is the low-profile cousin of Indian billionaire Adi Godrej, who gets his fortune from one-fifth share of the Godrej family assets. The wildlife enthusiast, who has never been involved in business, founded the Raptor Research and Conservation Foundation to focus on the conservation of Asian birds of prey and sits on the governing council of the Bombay Natural History Society.

For the entire list of Indian billionaires, see here.

The youngest billionaires

The Bansals of Flipkart—Sachin and Binny—are the youngest Indians to make it to the list. With a net worth of 1.2 billion, the Bansal duo has been instrumental in transforming Flipkart as the country’s top e-commerce retailer with 30 million products, 46 million registered users and 8 million shipments a month. Sachin recently became chairman and will reportedly oversee Flipkart’s public listing, according to the magazine.

19-year-old Alexandra Andresen of Norway is the world’s youngest billionaire with a net worth of $1.2 billion. She and her 20-year-old sister Katharina came into 10-figure fortunes when their father, Johan Andresen, transferred each of them 42% of family-owned investment company Ferd. The Andresen family has been a household name in Norway for over 100 years, primarily known for their tobacco brand, Tiedemanns.

The world’s top billionaires

Microsoft’s Bill Gates remains the richest person in the world with a net worth of $75 billion, despite being poorer by $4.2 billion than a year ago. He has held the number one slot for three years in a row. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had the best year of all billionaires. The 31-year-old added $11.2 billion to his fortune taking it to a staggering $44.6 billion that helped him move up to number 6 from 16. He and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos make their first appearance in the top 10 ranking.