NEW DELHI (CU)_India added one billionaire every 10 days over the past year amidst the pandemic. This is owing to rising stock market valuation, which grew the number of billionaires worldwide by 412 to 3,228. With 50 fresh additions and 10 dropouts in 2020, there are now 209 Indian-origin billionaires, of which 177 are Indian residents.
Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, who continue to top the list, were joined by the Bawri family of Macleods Pharmaceuticals, Arvindkumar Poddar of Balkrishna Industries, Pankaj Munjal of Hero Cycles, T S Kalyanaraman of Kalyan Jewellers and many more.
Ambani, chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries, saw his wealth surge 24 per cent to $83 billion. Reliance, a Fortune Global 500 company, is India’s largest exporter, accounting for 8 per cent of the country’s exports.
Meanwhile, Adani also saw his wealth almost double to $32 billion on account of Adani Green Energy’s growth in valuation to $20 billion.
The rise in wealth of the rich despite the pandemic, has been on account of rise in value of financial assets in the companies they own. Last year, the Nasdaq was up 42 per cent, followed by China’s Shenzhen (40 per cent), Sensex (23.4 per cent) and Japan’s Nikkei (22.9 per cent).
China became the first country in the world to top 1,000 dollar billionaires, with the country adding 256 new billionaires last year. Accordingly, China now has 1,056 billionaires which exceeds the combined total of the US, India and Germany.
Experts say that with more billionaires than the rest of the world combined, for the first time in perhaps hundreds of years, wealth creation appears to be moving to Asia. Meanwhile, blockchain, biotech, electric vehicles and e-commerce are said to have been the fastest growing sectors last year amidst the pandemic.
