India adds 27 new billionaires

Worldwide, 99 new billionaires were added to the Hurun Global Rich List 2016.

A file photo of Mukesh Ambani. Photo: Reuters

India added 27 new billionaires with Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries (RIL), emerging at the top with a personal wealth of $26 billion, according to Hurun Global Rich List 2016.

Cumulative Indian billionaires’ wealth stood at $308 billion, registering a 25 per cent growth over last year. Mr. Ambani, who is ranked 21st globally, was followed by Sun Pharma promoter, Dilip Shanghvi , with personal wealth of $18 billion.

India is home to 111 billionaires and most of them are from Mumbai, according to the report.

“With the launch of new central government schemes, Make in India push and so on, I see an immense potential for wealth creation in India,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, Managing Director, Chief Researcher, Hurun Report India. “I hope India's 2016 budget would simplify tax laws, reduce red tape resulting in an overall increase in transparency.” - India’s e-commerce leaders, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal of Flipkart, with wealth of $1.4 billion, were ranked amongst the 69 billionaires under the age of 40.

Globally, 99 new billionaires were added to the list in 2016 to take the total billionaire rich list to a record of 2,188, 50 per cent more than 2013.

China’s rich

The rich in China overtook their U.S. counterparts to make Beijing, the `billionaire capital of the world’ for the first time, according to Hurun.

In China real estate generated most number of billionaires (117), followed by manufacturing and technology with 94 and 68 respectively.

Led by Beijing, five Chinese cities make the top 10 cities for super wealth creators. Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou are home to 100, 64, 50, 46 and 32 billionaires respectively. Average age of the billionaires is 56.

China is the number 1 in the world in terms of generating self-made billionaires akin to “rags to riches,” according to the report.

Total billionaires wealth increased by nine per cent to $7.3 trillion, more than the GDP of Germany and the U.K. combined and coming close to half that of the U.S.

The Hurun Rich list saw 729 individuals’ wealth declining while 102 fell out of last year’s list.

Russian billionaires Russian billionaires lost $130bn on the back of a further 19 per cent drop in the Russian rouble and with lacklustre performance of mining, metals and energy sector.

Commodity price correction dragged down the wealth of metal & mining billionaires. Lakshmi Mittal, 65, lost US$7bn owing to iron ore price correction of 40 per cent as per IMF commodity price data

Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Researcher of Hurun Report, said: “Despite its own slowdown and falling stock markets, China minted more new billionaires than any other country in the world last year, mainly on the back of new listings. Growth in billionaires for the rest of the world was held back by a slowdown in the global economy, the strengthening of the U.S. dollar and the drop in oil prices. The number of billionaires, however, has jumped 50% since 2013.”

Hurun Report on Wednesday released the Hurun Global Rich List 2016, a ranking of the US dollar billionaires currently found in the world.