Mukesh Ambani Retains Top Spot as India's Richest Person: Forbes

New York: Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani has retained his position as India's richest person, leading a pack of 84 Indian billionaires in 2016, according to Forbes' annual ranking of billionaires. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates continued his reign as the world's richest person with a net worth of $75 billion. Forbes' 2016 list of the World's Billionaires includes 1,810 billionaires, down from a record 1,826 a year ago. Their aggregate net worth is $6.5 billion, $570 million less than last year. Mr Gates remains the richest person in the world with a net worth of $75 billion, despite being $4.2 billion poorer compared to a year ago. He has been No. 1 for three years in a row and topped the list 17 out of 22 years. Forbes said Mr Ambani retained his position as India's richest person despite shares of his oil and gas giant Reliance Industries taking a hit due to lower oil prices. He was ranked 36th on the list with a net worth of $20.6 billion (around Rs 1.4 lakh crore at $1 = Rs 67.86), the magazine said, adding, "The $62.2 billion (revenues) firm is likely to resume buying crude oil from Iran after the lifting of sanctions." Occupying the second spot on the list was Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega, founder of closing retail giant Zara and the richest man in Europe. On the third spot was billionaire philanthropist and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, followed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu (4th) and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (5th). Mr Ambani led a pack of 84 billionaires from India, with pharmaceuticals magnate Dilip Shanghvi (44th; $16.7 billion or Rs 1.13 lakh crore), Wipro chairman Azim Premji (55th; $15 billion or Rs 1 lakh crore) and HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar (88th; $11.1 billion or Rs 75,325 crore) coming in among the top 100 billionaires. Other prominent Indian billionaires included ArcelorMittal's Lakshmi Mittal (135th), Bharti Airtel's Sunil Mittal (219th), ports and power magnate Gautam Adani (453rd), OP Jindal group's Savitri Jindal (453rd), Bajaj Group's Rahul Bajaj (722nd), Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy (959th) and Mahindra Group's Anand Mahindra (1577th). Also making to the list was investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala at the 1011st position, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani (1121st), former Amazon executive and Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal (1476th), and pharma company Wockhardt chairman Habil Khorakiwala (1694th). Forbes' 221 people fell off the list, while 198 newcomers joined the ranks of billionaires in 2016. Apart from Mr Gates, Mr Buffett held steady in the top 20. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had the best year of all billionaires. The 31-year-old added $11.2 billion to his fortune and moved up to the sixth spot from sixteenth. He and Amazon's Jeff Bezos both made their first appearance in the top ten of Forbes' annual ranking of the world's wealthiest. In another first, billionaire from China's mainland, Wang Jianlin, whose company owns AMC Theaters, climbed into the top 20. Among the most notable newcomers were Cameron Mackintosh, the first theater producer to make the billionaire ranks; WeWork's Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey, and Pinterest's Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp. Mr Neumann, Mr Silbermann and Mr Sharp are three of a record 66 billionaires under the age of 40. The youngest billionaire in the world was a 19-year-old Norwegain heiress, Alexandra Andresen, who has a 42 per cent stake in her family's business. Her sister Katharina was the second youngest, just 20. Forbes said another new entrant worth mentioning is Zhou Qunfei, whose $5.9 billion fortune from smartphone screens is enough to make her the richest self-made woman in the world. She is one of 190 women in the list, down from 197 last year. The US has 540 billionaires, more than any other country in the world, followed by mainland China with 251 (Hong Kong has another 69) and Germany with 120. Russia has 77, ten-figure fortunes, 11 fewer than last year, while Brazil is down 23 to 31.

Mukesh Ambani Retains Top Spot as India's Richest Person: Forbes

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