Indian billionaires hold a third of country’s GDP; Adani biggest wealth gainer

The cumulative wealth of 284 Indian billionaires is a third of the country’s GDP, a report said on Thursday.

Gautam Adani, who helms the conglomerate headquartered in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, has emerged as the biggest wealth gainer globally with a ₹1 lakh crore jump in his fortune to ₹8.4 lakh crore, as per the Hurun Global Rich List.

Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani saw a 13 per cent decline in his wealth to ₹8.6 lakh crore, according to the yearly report which uses a cut-off at January 15. His $100 billion fortune has helped him reclaim the title of being the richest Asian.

Adani, who had suffered a significant setback to his fortunes after the Hindenburg report pointing to governance lapses in the conglomerate, saw a 13 per cent increase in his fortunes in the last year.

The country is home to 284 billionaires whose cumulative wealth rose by 10 per cent to ₹98 lakh crore, or a third of the country’s GDP, the report said.

Interestingly, amid the concerns on concentration of wealth in few hands, the list pointed out that India has surpassed China in the average wealth of every billionaire is ₹34,514 crore as against ₹29,027 crore in China.

The list, which considers January 15 as the cut-off, said that 175 Indian billionaires have seen a rise in wealth over the past year, while 109 saw their networth decline or remain the same.

Roshni Nadar with a networth of ₹3.5 lakh crore became the richest Indian woman, and fifth richest woman globally, after her father transferred 47 per cent stake in HCL to her.

From a city perspective, Mumbai added 11 billionaires to take the total up to 90 such super-rich people, but lost the tag of being Asia’s billionaire capital to Shanghai this year.

Healthcare industry has the largest number of billionaires in India at 53, followed by by consumer goods with 35 entrants and industrial products with 32 entrants, according to the list.

The average age of Indian billionaires is 68, two years higher than the global billionaires’ average age, the list said.

Thirty-four-year-old Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur of Razorpay are the youngest Indian billionaires with a fortune of ₹8,643 crore each, the list said.