Now Anil Ambani Becomes the Richest Man

Reliance Power Ltd's IPO, the country's biggest, has helped the promoter, Anil Ambani, whiz past elder brother Mukesh and NRI tycoon Lakshmi Mittal at the top of India's richie-rich club, with his wealth soaring to more than 60 billion dollars.

As per a list of richest Indians put out by renowned business magazine Forbes late last year, Mittal and Mukesh Ambani were ranked at the top two positions, followed by Anil at the third position.

At Rs 450 a share IPO that was concluded last week, Anil's stake in Reliance Power, to be listed in early February, would amount to about 13 billion dollars. Even before the issue, Anil's fortune was on an upswing while those of Mukesh and Mittal fell since the Forbes list was announced.

Forbes had calculated Lakshmi Mittal's wealth at 51 billion dollars, based on the value of his shareholding in the world's largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal as on November 2. However, a plunge in ArcelorMittal's market value since then (about 20 per cent down in past three months) as well as a small drop in his shareholding has cut down his wealth by close to 12 billion dollars.

Mittal's current holding in ArcelorMittal stands at 623.62 million shares or 43.04 per cent, down from 44.79 per cent in November, giving him a net worth of 39.1 billion dollars, on the basis of the company's closing share price of 62.7 dollars on Friday in New York.

According to Forbes list, the net worth of Mukesh and Anil Ambani stood at 49 billion dollars and 45 billion dollars, respectively, as on November 2. However, since that date, the total market capitalisation of Mukesh Ambani group has dropped by 2.95 per cent from Rs 5,19,557.33 crore to Rs 5,04,316.24 crore as on January 18.

During the same period, the total market value of five Anil Ambani group companies has increased by 4.63 per cent to Rs 2,92,474.64 crore from Rs 2,79,536.41 crore on November 2.

Assuming that the net worth of the two billionaires have increased in same ratio as that of their groups' market value, Mukesh Ambani has lost about 1.5 billion dollars, while Anil's fortunes soared by about 2.1 billion dollars. This would put elder Ambani's worth at 47.5 billion dollars, still a shade higher than Anil's 47.1 billion dollars.

However, the situation might change drastically after the listing of Reliance Power, whose IPO closed with record demand of close to 190 billion dollars.

The company has fixed the IPO price at Rs 450 per share, taking the total proceeds to Rs 11,700 crore and giving the company an initial market capitalisation of Rs 1,15,841 crore. This values Anil Ambani's holding of about 45 per cent in the company at Rs 52,128 crore (13.2 billion dollars), while his total net worth would rise to 60.3 billion dollars.

Besides, marketmen expect Reliance Power to list at a significant premium over the IPO price, which if happens, would further inflate Ambani's wealth.

On the prospects of he becoming the richest man after the IPO, Anil Ambani had earlier talked about the legacy of his father and Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani who had created wealth for shareholders.

Courtesy: PTI

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