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The Russia-Ukraine war or the impact from Covid has not affected wealth creation around the world as billionaires added 4 per cent collectively to their kitty to $15.2 trillion last year, says the 2022 M3M Hurun Global Rich List brought out in association with M3M India.
Two other features that stand out are how Asia is pulling away from North America and Europe and how India has consolidated its position. Asia houses 57 per cent of the world population, but also accounts for 66 per cent of the new faces on the list, 52 per cent of the billionaires and 42 per cent of wealth. Between them, North America and Europe have 15 per cent the population, 32 per cent of new faces, 44 per cent of billionaires and 55 per cent of wealth.
Healthcare sector to fore
Healthcare overtook real estate for the first time to second place in terms of hosting the maximum number of billionaires while retail pushed consumer goods to the fourth place. Financial services is still the number one for 9.3 per cent of the world’s billionaires. It has been a good year for energy, especially renewables, biotech, luxury goods, semiconductors, software services and shipping.
It was a bad year for China’s internet platforms, real estate, education, off-patent drugs and vaping industries as also for the Russian billionaires. China has seen 160 billionaires drop out of the list, followed by the US (32); Russia (13); and India (11). India has 249 billionaires, of whom, 215 live within the country. Their number has doubled every five years in the last decade.
Gautam Adani ($81 billion) added the most amount of wealth ($49 billion) while Mukesh Ambani, with an estimated wealth of $103 billion and being the Asia’s richest, is the only Indian to enter the top 10 in the list. Over the last 10 years, Indian billionaires added $700 billion to their cumulative wealth – equivalent to Switzerland’s GDP and twice that of the UAE.
Indians lead in sectors
Gautam Adani improved 86 ranks over the last five years to become the richest energy entrepreneur while Mukesh Ambani is the richest telecom entrepreneur. Vaccine king Cyrus S Poonawalla improved 72 ranks over the last five years to 55, and is the richest healthcare billionaire. His wealth registered a 41 per cent increase to $26 billion.
Shiv Nadar, along with family, is the third richest software and services billionaire ($28 billion), improving 52 ranks over the last five years. Lakshmi N Mittal ($25 billion) is the second richest metals and mining entrepreneur. Kumar Mangalam Birla and family ($18 billion, ranked 104th), the richest cement manufacturer, jumped 103 ranks over the last two years.
Uday Kotak ($16 billion) improved 29 ranks over the last five years to become the third richest banker in the world. India is also home to the richest aviation billionaires in Rakesh Gangwal ($4.3 billion) and Rahul Bhatia ($4.2 billion) and the family of Indigo Airlines. Ashwin S Dani and family ($9.7 billion), ranked 269th, is the richest paint entrepreneur.
Nusli Wadia and family ($7.5 billion) of Britannia is now the richest biscuit manufacturer. Byju Raveendran and family of Byju’s jumped 916 ranks over the last two years with a wealth of $3.3 billion. Ranked 1,083rd on the list, he is the third richest entrepreneur from the education sector in the world.
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