Forbes India rich list 2019: Mukesh Ambani retains top spot, Adani scores second

New Delhi : Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has retained the top spot on the Forbes list of richest Indians of the year 2019. This is the 12th time when Ambani has secured the 1st position with wealth swelling upto $51.4 billion.

"He added $4.1 billion to his net worth as Jio, the three-year-old telecom unit of his Reliance Industries, became one of India’s biggest mobile carriers with 340 million subscribers," Forbes said.

The Forbes India also mentioned that the effect of slow economy in India is quite visible. Overall, the total wealth of tycoons on the 2019 Forbes India Rich List shrank 8 per cent to $452 billion from a year ago and more than half of India’s 100 richest saw a decline in their net worth, the magazine said.

Despite this, some tycoons managed to rake up big profits.

Ambani and Adani were followed by the Hinduja brothers (net worth of $15.6 billion), Pallonji Mistry ($15 billion), and banker Uday Kotak ($14.8 billion).

Six newcomers made their debut on this year’s list: The Singh family (no. 41, $3.18 billion), who inherited the fortune of pharma magnate Samprada Singh, founder of Alkem Laboratories, who died in July this year; Byju Raveendran (no. 72, $1.91 billion), the 38-year-old founder of fast-rising edtech unicorn Byju’s; Mahendra Prasad (no. 81, $1.77 billion) of Aristo Pharmaceuticals; Manohar Lal and Madhusudan.

On the flip side, tycoons linked to autos and consumer goods suffered from weak consumer sentiment. Autoparts maker Vivek Chaand Sehgal’s net worth more than halved to $2.45 billion.