Net worth cut down to $17.5 billion.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. and the richest man in India, has suffered the biggest losses in the country as a result of the rupee’s rapid free fall.
According the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, which tracks the net worth of the richest people in the world, Ambani has lost close to $5.6 billion dollars since May 1st of this year, bringing his total net worth down to around $17.5 billion. Ambani’s younger brother, Anil, has also lost a considerable amount of about $1.3 billion, but his overall fortune is far less of that than Mukesh, hence the smaller overall loss.
The elder Ambani has been with Reliance since 1987, which since then has grown into one of the largest conglomerates in the world and was ranked earlier this year as the 107th largest corporation in the world by Fortune Global 500. He’s known for his opulent displays of wealth, such as his 27-story residence in South Mumbai called Antilia, named for a mythical island that supposedly existed in the Atlantic Ocean. With nine elevators and a staff of over 600 workers, Ambani faced criticism from around the world for spending close to a billion dollars on the house instead of spreading that wealth around the lower-income area where it was built.
The rupee has been in a meltdown for months now, leaving the Indian people reeling because of rising food prices and their government searching desperately for a way to stop the bleeding.
Daniel Martin, who is with Capital Economics, said to TIME Magazine that “The Indian rupee was the more underperforming currency from a major nation in the world, and its health has not improved. The shine has come off India. It’s not the glaring success story it was a few years ago.”
Other analysts lay the blame on the Indian economy, saying that it shouldn’t need to rely so heavily on foreign investments in order to sustain itself in the first place.
But that doesn’t seem to be slowing down Ambani, who recently announced that he’ll be investing another $4 billion in shale gas assets in the US (bringing the total investment by Reliance in this field to $6 billion). Oil and gas production is one of the cornerstones of the Ambani business empire.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com