Ambani slips from world’s 10th richest rank

Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, has lost his place among the world’s top 10 billionaires as shares of his flagship company saw correction over the past couple of months.

The chairman of Reliance Industries has now been relegated to the 11th position in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after reaching the fourth spot earlier this year.

The Bloomberg list, led by, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos with a net worth of $186 billion, shows Ambani's wealth at $76.5 billion, down from $90 billion earlier this year. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and Larry Ellison, executive chairman of Oracle Corporation, held the ninth and tenth positions, respectively, with total net worth of $79.2 billion each.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who added $110 billion to his personal wealth in 2020, retained his second position on Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $160 billion. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was placed third on the list with $131 billion as the combined wealth of the world’s 2,200 or so billionaires grew by a staggering $1.9 trillion in 2020

Ambani, whose digital platform Jio has been one of the most sought-after companies by global wealth funds in 2020, now is ranked 11th in the list.

Others among the top 10 richest include Bernard Arnault in the fifth spot with $110 billion. The luxury goods titan, owner of LVMH, was helped by a sudden surge in LVMH shares by 30 per cent despite severe hardships faced by his businesses overall. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($101 billion) is ranked fifth, Warren Buffet, the world’s shrewdest investor is in the sixth position with $85.8 billion, followed in the seventh spot by Larry Page, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, is ranked eighth with $80.5 billion, followed by Sergey Brin, president of Alphabet with $79.2 billion.

With nine out of the 10 top rich now in the US, the country is now home to 600 billionaires worth a total of $4 trillion.

A dip in Ambani's wealth came on the back of correction in Reliance Industries shares, which have fallen as much as 16 per cent from their all-time high of Rs2,369.35 after the conglomerate entered a $3.4 billion deal with Future Retail to acquire the latter's retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses.

However, the deal faced roadblock with Amazon challenging it. The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea from Future Group that sought to restrain r Amazon from interfering in its asset sale to Reliance in August which Amazon said breached agreements Future made with the US ecommerce leader in 2019.In October, Amazon had won an injunction to halt the sale from a Singapore arbitrator that the sides had agreed to use in case of dispute.

Despite the recent turbulence, Ambani’s flagship Reliance Industries shares are 33 per cent higher year till date, creating over Rs3 trillion wealth for investors, almost half of the wealth the conglomerate has created for investors over the past 25 years.

— issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com