him lose Rs 31,657 crore or 63 per cent of his wealth. The melt- ... Agarwal also
paid the price for an ill- advised .... to its current stock price. They added Rs ...
THE COMPANY OF CROREPATIS
POOR LITTLE RICH BOYS
The meltdown has wiped away 61 per cent of the wealth of the country’s top billionaires. B G SHIRSAT & RANJU SARKAR report BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST
D
ILLUSTRATION BY BINAY SINHA
TOP 100 BILLIONAIRES: HOW THEY STACK UP Rank
Wealth (Rs crore)
‘08 ‘09
Promoters
Flagship company
Industry
1 2 4 3 7 5 8 16 10 57 50 9 12 18 27 14 15 44 38 11 21 66 13 34 54 6 22 20 49 94 58 — 35 30 — 45 25 90 105 63 28 72 75 81 47 52 32 101 39 40
MUKESH AMBANI ANIL AMBANI SUNIL MITTAL K P SINGH & FAMILY AZIM PREMJI ANIL AGARWAL GAUTAM S ADANI DILIP S SHANGHVI KUMAR MANGALAM BIRLA MALVINDER & SHIVINDER SINGH SAURAV TAYAL FAMILY PRITHVIRAJ, SAJJAN & NAVEEN JINDAL G M RAO SHIV NADAR RAHUL BAJAJ VIJAY MALLYA UDAY KOTAK Y K HAMIED V C BURMAN FAMILY TULSI R TANTI KALANITHI MARAN BRIJMOHAN LALL MUNJAL JAIPRAKASH GAUR VYOMESH M SHAH & MAHIPATRAY V SHAH ASHWIN CHOKSI, ASHWIN DANI, ABHAY VAKIL RAMESH CHANDRA ADI GODREJ SUBHASH CHANDRA MURALI KRISHNA PRASAD DIVI NITIN SANDESARA N R NARAYANA MURTHY S KISHORE & K A SASTRY GLENN SALDHANHA KESHUB MAHINDRA VIRENDRA D MHAISKAR SUDHIR MEHTA SHASHI & RAVI RUIA PANKAJ R PATEL D B GUPTA SRIRAM THYGARAJ B N KALYANI AJAY PIRAMAL NANDAN M NILEKANI S GOPALAKRISHNAN GAUTAM THAPAR KISHORE BIYANI B K GOENKA HARSH C MARIWALA R P GOENKA RAJAN RAHEJA
Reliance Ind Reliance Communications Bharti Airtel DLF Wipro Sterlite Ind Adani Enterprises Sun Pharma Grasim Industries Religare Enterprises Jaybharat Textiles Jindal Steel GMR Infrastructure HCL Technologies Bajaj Auto United Breweries Kotak Mahindra Bank Cipla Dabur Suzlon Energy Sun TV Network Hero Honda Jaiprakash Associates Akruti City Asian Paints Unitech Godrej Industries Zee Entertainment Divi's Lab Sterling Biotech Infosys Technologies KSK Energy Glenmark Pharma Mahindra & Mahindra IRB Infrastructure Developers Torrent Pharma Essar Oil Cadila Healthcare Lupin Shriram Transport Finance Bharat Forge Piramal Healthcare Infosys Technologies Infosys Technologies Crompton Greaves Pantaloon Retail Welspun India Marico CESC Exide Ind
Refineries Telecommunication Telecommunication Realty IT Metals Trading Pharmaceutical Diversified Diversified Textiles Metals Infrastructure IT Automobiles Breweries Bank Pharmaceutical FMCG Capital goods Media-entertainment Automobiles Cement Realty FMCG Realty FMCG Media-entertainment Pharmaceutical Pharmaceutical IT Power Pharmaceutical Automobiles Realty Pharmaceutical Refineries Pharmaceutical Pharmaceutical Financial services Auto ancillaries Pharmaceutical IT IT Capital goods Retail Textiles FMCG Diversified Diversified
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
infrastructure space lost 80-89 per cent of their wealth this year. This included JK Jain of Jai Corp (his son Anand Jain, is a close associate of RIL CMD Mukesh Ambani), which is setting up two SEZs near Mumbai; PNC Menon and family of Shobha Developers; Ravi Purvankara of Purvankara Projects; Rakeshkumar Wadhawan of HDIL. Perhaps the only exceptions were Vyomesh M Shah and Mahipatray V Shah of Akruti City, who lost only 41 per cent of their wealth. Among the biggest losers was Tulsi LF’s K P Singh — KP to his Tanti of Suzlon Energy, who fell eight friends — an army officer places in the billionaire rankings to setwho quit the service to join tle at 20th place. Tanti lost 86 per cent his father-in-law’s Delhi Land in the 12 months trailing January 2009 & Finance in 1961, became, in as the wind turbine maker’s stock came 2007, after he listed the firm, the under fire after Edison International, world’s richest real estate baron. The one of its biggest customers in the US, offering helped him boost his fortune cancelled an order for 150 turbines afto Rs 85,666 crore on his company's ter cracks appeared in the rotor blades. listing day in 2007. In January 2009, a Customers were reassured only when 50 per cent drop in demand and a 20 Suzlon shipped out new turbines made per cent drop in real estate prices, and of reinforced plastic. Its biggest acquicorrection in real estate stocks, saw sition, Repower (which makes large him lose Rs 31,657 crore or 63 per cent turbines), has been a roller-coaster of his wealth. The meltride. Its initial financdown has forced one of ing plans fell through India’s biggest real eswhen markets crumTHE LAW OF tate developers to defer bled. In late December, NATURE HAS BEEN it announced it would plans to raise another $1.5 billion by listing BRUTAL WITH OUR pay ¤270m to increase an arm in Singapore. its stake to 91 per cent, BILLIONAIRES — Fellow developer as required under GerTHE BIGGER THEY man law to control the Unitech’s Ramesh Chandra was worse off. WERE, THE LARGER company. In early JanuThe sixth richest man ary, Suzlon sold a 10 HAS BEEN THEIR in India in 2008 per cent stake in its BelLOSS OF WEALTH. gium arm, Hansen, to a dropped 20 places to 26th rank in 2009 as London-based investMUKESH AMBANI the correction in realty ment firm for an undisLOST 58 PER CENT closed amount. This stocks saw his wealth shrink by Rs 52,788 could help Tanti bridge OF HIS WEALTH crore or 93 per cent. A the gap and gain control structural engineer, of Repower. Chandra moved into real estate in 1985 Another big loser was metals maven to build middle-class homes. The cred- Anil Agarwal, with interests in aluit crunch and fall in stock prices has re- minium, copper and iron ore, who saw strained the developer’s ability to raise his wealth shrink by Rs 43,176 crore or money to fund Unitech’s homes, of- 63 per cent. While much of this was fices and shopping malls in Delhi’s due to the fall in commodity prices, suburbs, and across other cities in the Agarwal also paid the price for an illcountry. advised restructuring plan, aborted imIn many ways, the change in for- mediately after a few institutional intunes of these two developers sum- vestors opposed it for favouring promarises the story of the country’s bil- moters. lionaires this year. The law of nature Of the 44 top losers whose net has been brutal on them — the bigger worth is down over 80 per cent, 25 are they were, the larger has been their loss from realty related sectors. Billionaires of wealth. Mukesh Ambani, the coun- in commodities, oil, agriculture and try’s wealthiest Indian, lost Rs 1,39,925 metals lost over 70 per cent each. The crore, or 58 per cent of his wealth, as cement and steel billionaires lost heavhis flagship Reliance Industries fell on ily on government efforts to control risconcerns of flagging demand for petro- ing inflation. leum and petrochemicals in its key export markets in the West, and the delay Defying the trend in kicking off gas supplies from the A few billionaires added to their wealth in an otherwise gloomy year for Krishna-Godavari basin. Brother Anil Ambani, the second wealth-makers. Nitin Sandesara, the wealthiest Indian, lost Rs 1,10,082 CMD of Sterling Biotech, increased his crore, or 66 per cent of his wealth, as wealth by Rs 806 crore, or 28.54 per his flagship Reliance Communications cent, by creating a globally-competitive fell in line with the broader market gelatine business. In the mid-1990s, even as buyout talks with South the Sandesaras exited the traditional African telco MTN failed. Mega power tea-trading business to set up a plant to projects under Reliance Power will test manufacture gelatine at Karakhadi near Vadodara. They were looking to enter a his execution skills. While the brothers retained the top business that would be globally comtwo slots, telecom czar Sunil Mittal petitive, high-tech and high-growth swapped places with DLF promoter K P with strong entry barriers. In less than Singh to move up a rank to No 3, while a decade, Sterling has emerged as the Singh settled for No 4 despite eroding largest gelatin manufacturer in Asia, with key customers in the US. his wealth 80 per cent. Several billionaires in the realty and Sterling’s advantage is access to cheap-
Jan '08
Jan '09
2,42,902.02 1,02,976.76 1,66,308.96 56,226.71 77,776.69 55,027.08 1,56,400.46 31,657.29 53,470.03 27,246.74 68,727.81 25,551.66 53,332.89 17,661.54 15,949.03 15,047.99 38,462.81 13,256.32 10,611.88 12,184.30 5,643.57 11,085.81 40,784.05 11,010.94 28,588.16 10,180.67 14,686.51 5,953.34 10,323.17 5,890.29 22,345.63 5,825.03 21,857.51 5,811.47 6,109.73 5,712.24 6,734.65 5,389.03 38,300.17 5,215.78 11,605.47 5,070.51 4,041.05 4,596.39 23,975.03 4,411.82 7,171.00 4,227.86 5,279.77 4,203.21 56,965.44 4,177.05 11,598.21 4,034.66 12,131.50 4,005.43 5,836.05 3,819.60 2,825.06 3,631.20 4,821.72 3,468.29 NR 3,157.43 7,056.91 3,081.56 8,338.01 2,951.48 NR 2,858.72 6,046.24 2,725.48 10,551.11 2,535.29 2,853.93 2,517.43 2,422.92 2,481.01 4,212.00 2,463.21 10,095.33 2,457.96 3,441.40 2,430.34 3,326.99 2,393.12 3,230.56 2,323.76 5,992.60 2,323.09 5,536.72 2,321.81 7,647.96 2,223.37 2,611.69 2,207.99 6,731.49 2,199.08 4,319.60 2,107.03
India’s top five: While Mukesh and Anil Ambani retained the top two slots, telecom czar Sunil Mittal traded places with DLF’s K P Singh to emerge third richest, and Azim Premji moved up two notches
er raw material (bovine bones, which it sources 30-60 per cent cheaper than plants in the West) and labour, helping it emerge among the lowest cost producers. Continued on page 3
POOR LITTLE RICH BOYS
among the top five companies in the mid-cap space (Rs 100-500 crore) in a study last year. Tayal’s growth was fuelled by acquisitions as KSL bought ailing textile rivals including Surat Co-operative Mills, Kamleshwar Textile Mills, Empress Textile Mills and Deccan Co-operative Mills. These gave KSL the opportucontinued from page 1 nity to develop land banks, and the group is developing 15 realty projThe other big surprise was ects: townships, hotels, commercial Saurabh Tayal, chairman of KSL and complexes, malls, multiplexes, and Industries, who gained Rs 5,442 warehouses across Maharashtra, crore, or 96 per cent in wealth. A Punjab and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. third-generation scion of an old texAmong other billionaires who detile family, Tayal has fied a falling market transformed the and increased their 50-year-old textile wealth are Lupin OF INDIA’S 367 business and forayed Laboratories’ D B BILLIONAIRES, into real estate — the Gupta, who added ONLY 17 ARE NEW Rs 58 crore, or 2 per group is developing properties in several cent, to his wealth in ENTRANTS, locations. While the 12 months trailINCLUDING 14 many textile exing January 2009; porters are grappling pharma billionaires WHO TOOK THEIR with the US scrapDilip Shanghvi of COMPANIES ping of the textile Sun Pharma and Y K PUBLIC quota regime, KSL’s Hamied of Cipla revenue and net managed to retain profits have grown their wealth. The 36 per cent and 116 per cent respec- biggest gainers were brothers tively year-on-year over three years Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, till March 2007, helping it emerge who sold their 34.86 per cent stake
Rank
Wealth (Rs crore)
‘08 ‘09
Promoters
Flagship company
Industry
17 62 64 70 24 74 61 33 96 79 59 106 80 29 41 36 48 102 108 26 82 85 69 51 128 97 43 77 129 144 46 42 83 180 92 56 121 53 – 116 134 73 84 19 60 55 115 198 37 127
RAKESHKUMAR WADHAWAN NUSLI WADIA MANOJ G TIRODKAR PRS OBEROI LAGADAPATI MADHUSUDAN RAO MURUGAPPAN FAMILY SHANTANU PRAKASH G V KRISHNA REDDY K ANJI REDDY B K PARKEH & FAMILY SAMIR JAIN & FAMILY K DINESH RAJJU D SHROFF V N DHOOT & FAMILY RAGHAV BAHL SATYA NARIAN PRAKASH PUNJ HINDUJA BROTHERS VIVEK CHAAND SEHGAL S D SHIBULAL REJI ABRAHAM KIRAN MAZUMDAR SHAW RAKESH & REKHA JHUNJHUNWALA VENU SRINIVASAN & SURESH KRISHNA ANU AGA R S AGARWAL KARSANBHAI KHODIDAS PATEL ASHOK SARIN & ANIL SARIN B G BANGUR SANDIP & SANJAY JHUNJHUNWALA SHASHI KIRAN SHETTY NARESH GOYAL NIMESH NAGINDAS KAMPANI SHYAM SUNDER BHARTIA MAM RAMASWAMY & GEETHA MUTHIAH K M SHETH & FAMILY JIGNESH P SHAH BS & GS SAWHNEY, DPS KOHILI S N KIRLOSKAR ISMAIL G MEMON & FAMILY P K KHURANA ABHIJIT RAJAN H F KHORAKIWALA D P JINDAL J K JAIN B G RAGHUPATHY B K BIRLA H S BEDI ARVIND T SHAH ROHTAS GOEL & FAMILY ANALJIT SINGH
HDIL Bombay Dyeing GTL EIH Lanco Infratech EID Parry Educomp Solutions GVK Power & Infra Dr Reddy's Labs Pidilite Ind Entertainment Network Infosys Technologies United Phosphorus Videocon Ind TV18 Punj Lloyd Hinduja TMT Motherson Sumi Infosys Technologies Aban Offshore Biocon Investor TVS Motors Thermax Emami Nirma Anant Raj Ind Shree Cement Rei Agro Allcargo Global Jet Airways JM Financial Jubilant Organosys Chettinad Cement G E Shipping Financial Technology Koutons Retail Kirloskar Brothers KGN Industries Everest Kanto Cylinder Gammon India Wockhardt Maharashtra Seamless Jai Corp BGR Energy Sys Century Textiles Tulip Telecom Asian Star Omaxe Max India
Realty Diversified IT Services-hotels Engineering Diversified IT Infrastructure Pharmaceutical Chemicals Media-entertainment IT Pesticides Diversified Media-news Constructions Diversified Auto ancillaries IT Oil exploration Pharmaceutical Diversified Automobiles Capital goods FMCG FMCG Realty Cement Agro products Logistics Aviation Financial services Chemicals Cement Shipping IT Retail Engineering Miscellaneous Packaging Engineering Pharmaceutical Metals Infrastructure Engineering Diversified Telecommunication Gems & Jewellery Realty Pharmaceutical
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
Jan '08 15,812.50 4,224.87 4,185.71 3,532.71 11,114.12 3,389.69 4,226.35 7,444.48 2,772.75 3,265.69 4,616.66 2,420.50 3,232.00 9,916.80 6,482.12 6,842.70 5,917.18 2,572.62 2,121.56 10,407.97 3,131.96 3,078.69 3,743.09 5,552.91 1,817.91 2,771.65 6,349.53 3,295.66 1,817.22 1,563.59 6,004.01 6,477.58 3,123.32 1,141.96 2,834.48 4,890.04 1,962.48 5,353.15 NR 1,992.46 1,737.12 3,401.90 3,087.01 14,293.84 4,269.41 4,981.00 2,002.30 1,033.36 6,819.65 1,821.47
Jan '09 2,080.86 2,079.53 2,065.26 2,038.68 2,018.01 2,002.10 1,950.09 1,948.53 1,931.99 1,842.39 1,756.06 1,741.08 1,682.86 1,633.46 1,626.41 1,578.21 1,564.54 1,550.10 1,526.04 1,400.98 1,381.56 1,362.79 1,317.84 1,304.24 1,279.48 1,279.48 1,238.63 1,232.43 1,199.54 1,189.67 1,185.39 1,119.12 1,080.41 1,051.63 1,047.23 1,029.69 1,016.50 1,007.45 985.75 978.39 948.50 940.94 913.39 912.78 897.17 891.19 874.79 872.51 856.01 841.01
in Ranbaxy Laboratories to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo at a hefty premium to its current stock price. They added Rs 1,572 crore to their combined wealth, taking their net worth to Rs 10,611 crore. Had they not sold out, they would have been poorer by Rs 4,654 crore. Brijmohan Lall Munjal, patriarch of the Hero Group, managed to hold on to his wealth on the basis of a good show by the flagship Hero Honda, which consolidated its share of the two-wheelers market at the cost of rivals like Bajaj and TVS Motors. A few others who defied the odds included Chandir Gidwani and Khushroo P Byramjee of Centrul Capital, Sudhir Shankar Moravekar of Panoramic Universal (hotels), Prem Adip of MVL (constructions) and Harish Belwal of Intra Infotech. These billionaires had the highest increase in wealth in percentage terms. Of India’s 367 billionaires, only 17 are new entrants, including 14 who took their companies public. Sixty-eight billionaires in 2008 were also dollar billionaires (rupee:dollar conversion rate of Rs 39.37 for January 2008), but in 2009, only 20 figure as dollar billionaires (rupee:dollar exchange rate of Rs 48.88 for January 2009). Prominent among those who’ve ceased to be dollar billionaires are Kalanithi Maran of Sun TV, Jaiprakash Gaur of Jaiprakash Associates, Glenn Saldhanha of Glenmark Pharma, Brijmohan Lall Munjal of Hero Honda, Subhash Chandra of Zee Entertainment, and Adi Godrej of Godrej group. Despite the sharp corrections in their stocks, the realty, infrastructure and construction sector produced 46 billionaires, followed by capital goods (including engineering) and pharmaceuticals (32 each), IT (31), diversified (27), metals (25), media and textiles (21 each). Automobiles, financial services, FMCG and cement sectors together added 65 billionaires, while the remaining 104 billionaires were from sectors such as services, retail, sugar, telecom, trading, and gems and jewellery.
STACKING UP
Falling out of favour The fall in the Sensex saw 207 billionaires drop out of the 2009 Billionaire Club. Among the wellknown were IT entrepreneurs Atul K Nishar (Hexaware), M V Srinivas (Northgate Technologies) and K Padmanabhan (Teledatata Informatics), and Hyderabad-based infrastructure developers like Nama Nageswar Rao and Nama Seethaiah of Madhucon Projects, and D S Chandra Mohan Reddy of Prajay Realty developers like Lalit Gandhi and Naina Shah of Lok Housing, and Deepak Kulkarni of DS Kulkarni & Brothers, who became billionaires on the back of their IPOs, could not sustain their position. Big investors like Vinod Khosla (Praj Industries), Ranjitsinh A Parmar (Suzlon Energy), Vivek Mundra (Aban Offshore), Bharat K Sheth (Financial Technologies — though he remains MD of Great Eastern Shipping), GR Gopinath (Kingfisher Airlines) and Vineet Nayyar also went off the list as the value of their investments fell sharply. The poster boys of media and entertainment who exited from the list included Ajay Bijli of PVR, Subhash Ghai of Mukta Arts, Nirmal N Kotecha and P S Saminatha of Pyra-
(From top) Metal merchant Anil Agarwal’s wealth shrank by 63 per cent; Gautam S Adani lost too; unlike Dilip Shanghvi, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Malvinder Singh of Religare who got richer
mid Saimira, Anuradha Shukla of BAG Films & Media, Rasesh B Kanakia of Cinemax India, and Raajhendhran of Raj TV. Key pharmaceutical players excluded from The Billionaire Club are the Sarabhai family of Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprises, K R Ravishankar and Arun Kumar of Strides Arcolab, and S Devendra of Sashun Chemicals. Casualties in auto components included Jag Mohan Kapur of Sona Kayo Steering, Arvind Kapur of Rico Auto, and D K Jain of Lumax. Several billionaires in the metals space, especially of midcap companies, also fell by the wayside after riding the commodity cycle for two years.
