Ambani brothers - the richest in the world

Move over Bills Gates, Carlos Slim and LN Mittal, the Ambanis are coming. While you may still be figuring out your gains from the phenomenal 788 points rally on Tuesday, the Ambani brothers are on their way to the top echelons of global billionaires’ club. By the time the market closed on Tuesday, the Ambani brothers were worth nearly $81 billion. That is a whopping 8% of what India’s GDP was last year.

Combined, this is greater than the net worth of Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire, who was recently crowned as world’s wealthiest individual ahead of Bill Gates.

In all, the top-15 business families in India (excluding the Tatas) added close to $11 billion to their net worth all in a day. The combined net worth of the top 15 stands at $213 billion, or close to 20%, of the GDP.

What’s more, Mukesh Ambani is now within striking distance of dethroning LN Mittal as the richest Indian. Though the latest figures are not available, LN Mittal is estimated to be worth around $48 billion, only $2 billion more than the current net worth of Mukesh Ambani. Another 4% appreciation in Reliance Industries stock price and Mukesh Ambani will go past Mr Mittal. The rate at which the Mukesh Ambani-owned companies are going, his net worth rose by $3.25 billion on Tuesday, this might well have happened by the end of the day.

Equally astonishing has been the rise of Anil Ambani. The younger Ambani sibling added over $3 billion to his net worth on Tuesday. He is now worth nearly $35 billion and second only to his elder brother.

The other big gainer for the day was Sunil Bharti Mittal, who is riding high on the rising market capitalisation of Bharti Airtel. The telecom czar added nearly $1.25 billion to his net worth on Tuesday, thanks to a 5.6% rise in his company’s market price. He is now worth $22.4 billion. DLF’s KP Singh also got richer by a billion dollars and he is just a shade behind Anil Ambani at $32.6 billion at number three. (All calculations have been made by netting out the crossholding among group companies)