ISLAMABAD: The ranks of Indian billionaires swelled from 102 to 140 in 12 months, if the Forbes 2021 list is to be believed and their combined wealth “nearly doubled to $596 billion” in just the past year. But the Forbes also highlights that “two of the ten richest Indians get their wealth from healthcare, a sector that’s enjoying a pandemic boost around the world.”
“Another COVID-19 wave,” says Forbes in the first paragraph of its report on this country, “is sweeping across India and total cases now exceed 12 million. But the country’s stock market has shrugged off its pandemic funk to scale new peaks; the benchmark Sensex is up 75% from a year ago.
“The three richest Indians, Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani and Shiv Nadar alone have added just over $100 billion between them.” The total wealth of those three – $153.5 billion – accounts for over 25% of the combined wealth of Club 140. The wealth of just the top two, Ambani ($84.5 billion) and Adani ($50.5 billion), In the pandemic year, Ambani added $47.7 (Rs.3.57 trillion) to his wealth, reclaimed his spot as Asia’s richest person, with a net worth of $84.5 billion. Infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani whose net worth is $50.5 billion got a staggering $42 billion richer as shares of his companies, including Adani Enterprises and Adani Green Energy, rocketed. With his fortune up five-fold since 2020, Adani is now the second-richest Indian. Adani expanded aggressively into airports, unfazed by the travel slowdown. He also secured France’s Total, his partner in the gas business, to invest in his renewable energy company. The third one is Shiv Nadar with a networth of $23.5 billion stepped down as chairman of $9.9 billion (revenues) HCL Technologies last July, handing over the position to his only daughter, Roshni Nadar Malhotra
The Forbes highlights that “two of the ten richest Indians get their wealth from healthcare, a sector that’s enjoying a pandemic boost around the world.” The wealth “surge,” as Forbes calls it, has been worldwide. “A new billionaire was minted every 17 hours on average over the past year. Altogether, the world’s wealthiest are $5 trillion richer than a year ago.” India’s richest accounted for nearly 12% of that new $5 trillion.
The number 8th richest Indian is the vaccine billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla’s Serum Institute of India, run by his 40-year-old son Adar, joined the Covid-19 vaccines race early by forging multiple partnerships and investing $800 million in building a new factory.
Poonawalla net worth is $12.7 billion. Jabs of Poonawalla’s Covishield, the made-in-India version of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the Oxford University-AstraZeneca combine, are now being given across the country and exported as well. After slipping last year, pharma magnate Dilip Shanghvi climbed back into the top 10, propelled by a jump in shares of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries to claw back a net worth of $10.9 billion. Shanghvi, who founded and runs listed generics drug maker Sun Pharmaceuticals, returns to the top ten, thanks to a 68% jump in the company’s shares.
The wealth “surge” usually rides on a misery surge. And it isn’t just about pandemics. Disasters are a fabulous business. This time, ‘healthcare’ and tech (especially software services) among other sectors, did well for themselves. India’s top 10 tech tycoons in the list together added $22.8 billion in 12 months (or Rs 4.6 billion on average every day), to reach a combined wealth of $52.4 billion (Rs 3.9 trillion). That’s an increase of 77%. And yes, online education – even as tens of millions of poor students in mainly government schools were excluded from any kind of education – did bring benefits to some. Byju Raveendran added 39% to his own wealth to arrive at a net worth of $2.5 billion (Rs 187 billion).
Nineteen Indian newcomers joined the list, while another 19 returned to the list after falling off in the past. Among the new faces is octogenarian Prathap Reddy, founder and chairman of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, whose chain of Apollo Hospitals is treating Covid-19 patients. Arvind Lal, who founded and runs diagnostics chain Dr.Lal PathLabs, which got government approval to conduct Covid-19 tests, also makes his debut.