Billionaires' club has record 126 members; combined wealth is $728 bn now

A strong rally on Dalal Street over the past one and a half years and an unprecedented boom in initial public offerings (IPOs) have continued to swell the number of billionaire promoters in India.

The number of promoters and businessmen with net worth of $1 billion (around Rs 7,500 crore) reached an all-time high of 126, up from 85 at the end of CY20. These billionaire promoters have a combined wealth of around $728 billion (around Rs 54.6 trillion), up from around $483 billion (around Rs 35.3 trillion) at the end of 2020.

The combined wealth of the 126 billionaire promoters in Business Standard’s list is equivalent to a quarter of India’s expected gross domestic product (GDP) of around $2,947 billion in FY22 at current prices. The billionaire's wealth-to-GDP ratio was 18.6 per cent last year.

Though the billionaires’ list remains dominated by promoters of traditional family-owned conglomerates, this year's line-up saw the entry of tech and first-generation entrepreneurs who witnessed a big rise in their net worth, thanks to the stock market debut of their ventures. For example, Falguni Nayar, promoter of FSN E-Commerce (Nykaa.com), is now the 23rd wealthiest in the country with a net worth of around $7 billion.

Other promoters to make it to the billionaire’s club, thanks to the IPO boom, include Abhishek Lodha of Macrotech Developers with a net worth of $6.73 billion, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm ($1.04 billion), A R Boob of Clean Science & Technology ($2.71 billion), Vinod Agrawal of G R Infraprojects ($1.92 billion), Hiren Patel of Nuvoco Vistas ($1.3 billion), and Rakesh Jhunjunwala ($1.07 billion)  

Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries once again topped the charts with an all-time high net worth of around $104.7 billion (or Rs 7.85 trillion), up 21.4 per cent since the end of the 2020 calendar year in dollar terms. In comparison, Ambani's wealth had increased by 37 per cent in 2019.

Ambani added around $18.4 billion to his wealth in 2020 at the rate of around $354 million a week or around Rs 380 crore a day at the current rupee-dollar exchange rate.

Reliance Industries’ market capitalisation is up around 25 per cent year-to-date to nearly Rs 16 trillion, up from Rs 12.81 trillion at the end of December 2020.

The Gautam Adani family of Adani Group was, however, the biggest gainer (in dollar terms) for the second year in a row. The Adani family's net worth more than doubled in 2021 to around $82.43 billion currently, from around 440 billion at the end of December 2020 and around $20 billion at the end of 2019.

Adani gained from a big rally in share price of the group companies, led by Adani Total Gas (up 366 per cent year-to-date), Adani Transmission (up 315 per cent), Adani Enterprises (up 250 per cent), and Adani Power (up 99.6 per cent). The combined market capitalisation of listed Adani Group companies is up 133 per cent year-to-date in 2021 to Rs 9.87 trillion, from Rs 4.24 trillion at the end of December 2020. The Adani family owns around 62.6 per stake in their listed companies on average, one of the highest among the country's big family-owned business groups.

Technology entrepreneurs, such as Azim Premji of Wipro and Shiv Nadar (of HCL Tech), and Infosys founders also saw a big jump in their wealth in 2021 as IT companies became some of the most loved stocks at the bourses with record high valuations.

Other top gainers include R K Damani of Avenue Supermart -- now the fourth wealthiest promoter in the country with a net worth of $30.1 billion, up from $18.4 billion a year ago. Rahul Bajaj of Bajaj Group was also a winner with a 51 per cent rise in his family net worth to $14.4 billion from $9.5 billion a year ago.

The year also saw a steep jump in the wealth of India's metal & mining barons, such as Sajjan Jindal of JSW Group (104 per cent jump in net worth), Anil Agrawal of Vedanta (up 135 per cent), and Naveen Jindal of Jindal Steel and Power (up 41 per cent).