Three UAE expats feature in the top 100 richest Indian list
The combined wealth of India’s 100 richest grew $25 billion to touch $800 billion as post-pandemic demand revival powered its economy to become the fifth-largest in the world, surpassing the UK.
Three non-resident Indians living in the UAE — MA Yusuffali, chairman of Lulu Group, Joy Alukkas, chairman of Joyalukkas Group, and Micky Jagtiani, chairman of Landmark Group — retained their place in the prestigious Forbes list of 100 richest that was topped by Gautam Adani, India’sinfrastructure tycoon with a wealth of $150 billion.
Yusuffali, whose Lulu Group runs one of the fastest-growing hypermarket-supermarket networks in the world, was ranked 35th with a wealth of $5.4 billion. Alukkas, who owns one the largest jewellery networks in the Middle East, was positioned 69th with a fortune of $3.1 billion. He is the only Indian jeweller who could find a spot among the top 100. The 73rd-ranked Jagtiani’s wealth has been estimated at $2.9 billion.
After nearly tripling his wealth in 2021, Adani doubled his fortune this year to $150 billion to become the new No. 1— and also, for a while in September this year, the second richest person on the planet when his fortune stood at $155.7 billion. The biggest gainer this year in both percentage and dollar terms, Adani announced he would be investing $100 billion over the next decade, 70 per cent of it in green energy, a Forbes statement said.
The second richest Indian, according to Forbes, is Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the oil and gas to telecom giant, with $88 billion, down 5.0 per cent from last year’s $92.7 billion. Between them, Adani and Ambani now account for 30 per cent of the total wealth of India’s 100 richest.
Radhakishan Damani, who owns the DMart chain of supermarkets, broke into the top three for the first time though his net worth declined 6.0 per cent to $27.6 billion. Another year of bumper profits from Covid-19 vaccines pushed up India’s vaccine baron Cyrus Poonawalla to fourth place with a fortune of $21.5 billion, Forbes said in a statement.
Others among the top 10 include Shiv Nadar-$21.4 billion, Savitri Jindal & family-$16.4 billion; Dilip Shanghvi & family-$15.5 billion; Hinduja brothers-$15.2 billion; Kumar Birla-$15 billion; and Bajaj Family-$14.6 billion.
