Forbes’ Magazine 2008: World’s Richest Personalities

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A survey was conducted in the Global Billionaire’s club in which Four
among the ten were Indians. Two of them were Americans. One was a
Mexican telecom honcho Mr. Carlos Slim Helu. The most delighted news
is that Four Indians has emerged in the top ten list of the Forbes’ 2008
World’s Billionaires list.

Richest Indian:
Mr.Lakshmi Mittal, Mr.Mukesh Ambani, Mr. Anil Ambani and Mr. K.P.
Singh are the only Asians to have muscled their way into the list. Mr. Mittal,
owner of the world’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal has become the richest
Indian with a net worth of $45billion.Globally, he is ranking 4th in
the list prepared by Forbes magazine.

Forbes’ Rich ranking Indians:
The Reliance Industries Chairman, Mr. Mukesh Ambani, ($43 billion) is
ranked 5th and his younger brother Mr. Anil Ambani ($42 billion) stands 6th.
The DLF chairman, Mr. Singh ($30 billion) comes eight.

Forbes’ biggest gainer:
Anil Ambani is declared the biggest gainer with his wealth having increased
by $23.8 billion by Forbes since the last list. He is just $1 billion behind his
brother Mukesh. Mr.Mukesh is the second biggest gainer with a rise of $22.9
billion in his field.
2007 report tells us that elder brother’s net worth stood at $20.1 billion
making Mukesh the 14th richest man in the world. Anil was the 18th richest at
$18.2 billion. While Kushal Pal Singh is the world’s richest real estate baron
moving from 54th place to 8th place.

Interesting statistics:
There are 19 newcomers in the list adding to total of 53 billionaires. The
combined wealth of 53 billionaires reaches to $340.9 billion.
Their wealth is more than 3.5 times of the total 42 billionaires from China.
Last year, China had the highest number of newcomers at 28.

In this list, the number of billionaires from Asia jumped by a third to 211,
with a total net worth of $804 billion.
There are 63 newcomers and 16 drop outs. In this region, India and China are
followed by Hong Kong (26), Japan (24) and Australia (14) in terms of number
of billionaires. The top newcomer from Asia is an Indian.

Other Information:
Adani Enterprises’ promoter Mr. Gautam Adani has entered the list with
$9.3 billion to his name. For the first time, the number of billionaires has
crossed into four figures, at 1,125 up 179 from last year.