New Richest Indian ... world's richest too ?

Reliance Power Ltd`s IPO, the country`s biggest, has helped the promoter Anil Ambani whiz past elder brother Mukesh and NRI tycoon Lakshmi Mittal at the top of India`s richie-rich club, with his wealth soaring to more than 60 billion dollars.

As per a list of richest Indians put out by renowned business magazine Forbes late last year, Mittal and Mukesh Ambani were ranked at the top two positions, followed by Anil at the third position.

At Rs 450 a share IPO that was concluded last week, Anil`s stake in Reliance Power, to be listed in early February, would amount to about 13 billion dollars. Even before the issue, Anil`s fortune was on an upswing while those of Mukesh and Mittal fell since the Forbes list was announced.

Forbes had calculated Lakshmi Mittal`s wealth at 51 billion dollars, based on the value of his shareholding in the world`s largest steelmaker Arcelormittal as on November 2.

However, a plunge in Arcelormittal`s market value since then (about 20% down in past three months) as well as a small drop in his shareholding has cut down his wealth by close to 12 billion dollars.

Mittal`s current holding in Arcelormittal stands at 623.62 million shares or 43.04%, down from 44.79% in November, giving him a net worth of 39.1 billion dollars, on the basis of the company`s closing share price of 62.7 dollars on Friday in New York.

According to Forbes list, the net worth of Mukesh and Anil Ambani stood at 49 billion dollars and 45 billion dollars, respectively, as on November 2. However, since that date, the total market capitalisation of Mukesh Ambani Group has dropped by 2.95% from Rs 5,19,557.33 crore to Rs 5,04,316.24 crore as on January 18.

During the same period, the total market value of five Anil Ambani Group companies has increased by 4.63% to Rs 2,92,474.64 crore from Rs 2,79,536.41 crore on November 2.

Assuming that the net worth of the two billionaires have increased in same ratio as that of their groups` market value, Mukesh Ambani has lost about 1.5 billion dollars, while Anil`s fortunes soared by about 2.1 billion dollars. This would put elder Ambani`s worth at 47.5 billion dollars, still a shade higher than Anil`s 47.1 billion dollars.

However, the situation might change drastically after the listing of reliance power, whose IPO closed with record demand of close to 190 billion dollars.

The company has fixed the IPO price at Rs 450 per share, taking the total proceeds to Rs 11,700 crore and giving the company an initial market capitalisation of Rs 1,15,841 crore.

This values Anil Ambani`s holding of about 45% in the company at Rs 52,128 crore (13.2 billion dollars), while his total net worth would rise to 60.3 billion dollars.

Besides, marketmen expect reliance power to list at a significant premium over the IPO price, which if happens, would further inflate Ambani`s wealth.

On the prospects of he becoming the richest man after the IPO, Anil Ambani had earlier talked about the legacy of his father and reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani who had created wealth for shareholders.

Richest Indians

Essar Group's Shashi and Ravi Ruia are the only new entrants in the list of the 10 richest Indians compiled by Forbes, while banker Uday Kotak jumped the most number of places among the top 40 billionaires.

The Ruias jumped five places to the 7th position with a net worth of USD 12 billion, while Kotak with USD 4.6 billion hopped 11 positions to the 16th rank.

Savitri Jindal with a net worth of USD 8.5 billion has leapfrogged 10 ranks to stand at 11th position and Jaiprakash Gaur advanced nine places in the list with USD 3.8 billion. The three saw their wealth soaring thanks to the surge in their companies listed on the country's booming stock market.

The scrip of Kotak Mahindra bank has nearly tripled in the past one year from a low of Rs 364 on Nov 23, 2006 to Rs 1,059 on Thursday on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Similarly, the share price of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd jumped more than six times from a low of Rs 1,889 on December 12 last year to a record high of Rs 13,580 on Nov 1 this year.

There are 10 new entrants in the top 40 - Gautam Adani at 13th, Anand Jain (19), Cyrus Poonawalla (22), Rakesh Wadhawan (26), Niranjan Hiranandani (31), l Madhusudhan Rao (33), Gautam Thapar (34), Vikas Oberoi (36), Anu Aga (38) and Gracias Saldanha (39).

Billionaires Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal held their ground while Unitech's Ramesh Chandra and DLF's K P Singh rose one position each. Kumar Birla and Tulsi Tanti slipped two places each, while Azim Premji dropped one spot to the fifth position this year.

"Twenty-nine people who returned to the list are richer than last year. The only exception is Rahul Bajaj, who is battling his younger sibling over dividing their empire and whose fortune was flat at 2.3 billion dollar," Forbes said.