Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s net worth dropped 28% or $19 billion to $48 billion in the last two months as the coronavirus pandemic wiped out huge amounts of wealth from stock markets, according to a report published on Monday.
According to the Hurun Special Report on ‘Wealth Impact Two Months after COVID-19 Outbreak’, Ambani’s global ranking in the rich list is now down eight places to the 17th spot. He is the second biggest loser of wealth globally after French fashion giant LVMH’s chief executive Bernard Arnault, whose wealth dropped by $30 billion.
Apart from Ambani, three other Indian tycoons saw a massive drop in their wealth. Gautam Adani’s wealth dropped by $6 billion or 37%, HCL Technologies’ Shiv Nadar lost $5 billion and banker Uday Kotak’s net worth fell by $4 billion or 28%, according to the report. All the three have dropped out of the top 100 list.
Also read: Mukesh Ambani loses ‘Asia’s richest man’ title to Alibaba’s Jack Ma
“India’s top entrepreneurs have been hit by a 26% drop in the stock markets and a 5.2% drop in the value of the rupee compared with the US Dollar,” Hurun Report India Managing Director Anas Rahman said. “For Mukesh Ambani, it has been a perfect storm.”
Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said the last two months have eroded all the wealth generated in the more than two years. “The last two months have wiped out all the wealth made in the past two and a half years, with the World’s Top 100 down 12.6% or $408 billion.”
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos continues to be the richest man in the world with a net worth of $131 billion, which fell only by 9% during the last two months.
Chinese billionaires were among the few gainers in the last two months, and included promoters of video conferencing and pork meat producing companies, the report said. While India lost three rankings in the top-100 rankings, China added six billionaires in the league.
Last month, Ambani had lost the ‘Asia’s richest man’ title to Alibaba’s Jack Ma as steep fall in oil prices and global stocks reduced his net worth by $5.8 billion. The Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, a daily ranking of the world’s richest people, had placed Ma at the 18th spot. He lost $1.06 billion in a single day. With a net worth of $41.8 billion Ambani had ranked 19th on the list.
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