Steel king Lakshmi Mittal beats Ambani brothers to retain richest Indian crown

According to Forbes’ India’s 40 Richest list for 2007, Mittal, who successfully engineered the merger between the top two steel producers in the world, Mittal Steel and Arcelor Steel Co., last year, has pipped both the Ambani brothers – Mukesh and Anil – to top the rich list, thanks to strong growth in steel demand globally.

However, Mukesh Ambani, who controls India’s largest petrochemical company, Reliance Industries, is not too far behind, with a personal fortune of $49 billion, mainly due to a bull run in the Indian stock market the past two months. Last month, when share prices of Reliance Industries hit a record high, the media speculated whether he had become the richest man in the world surpassing Lakshmi Mittal, investment guru Warren Buffett, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Soon afterwards, Ambani, who is building a 27-storey mansion in Mumbai for his family and this month gave his wife a $60 million Airbus 319 with entertainment cabins, a sky bar and fancy showers as a birthday gift, scoffed the rumours, saying that "it matters little to me whether my personal fortunes are measured in billions or millions."

Mukesh’s estranged brother Anil Ambani, who owns Reliance Communications, India's third-largest mobile operator, was third with a net worth of $45 billion.

At No.4 on the India rich list is entrepreneur Kushal Pal Singh (net worth $35 billion), who has profited from the booming real estate industry in India. His company, DLF Ltd, which was listed in July, is India’s largest real estate developer.

"Thanks to a roaring Mumbai stock market, with a benchmark index up 53 percent in the past year, and a strong rupee that appreciated 12 percent, for the first time, all India rich-listers are billionaires. In aggregate, their wealth surged to $351 billion, a bit more than double last year's $170 billion, making India's 40 by far the wealthiest such group in all of Asia," Forbes stated in its special online report published Nov. 14.

"Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who lives in London, is No. 1 again, worth $51 billion, but Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Industries is India's most valuable company, is quickly closing the gap. His net worth jumped $30.5 billion to $49 billion, making him the year's biggest gainer. His estranged brother Anil is close on his heels, up $30.2 billion to $45 billion. Kushal Pal Singh, worth $35 billion after the listing of his flagship DLF, is now the world's richest real estate developer," author Naazneen Karmali reported.

"The four richest Indians are worth an astonishing $180 billion. Together, the foursome is worth more than the 40 richest Chinese combined," Karmali said.

Out of the forty, "twenty-nine of the people who returned to the list are richer than last year," the report said, with the exception of "Rahul Bajaj, who is battling his younger sibling over dividing their empire, and whose fortune was flat at $2.3 billion."