India now boasts of over 600 billionaires

At the start of the decade, the Ambani family (father and two sons) was worth Rs 33,000 crore (Rs 330 billion). It seemed a big number then, but it is only slightly more than half of what Gautam Adani, the logistics and power player, is worth today (Rs 60,474 crore or Rs 604.74 billion). There are five others who are worth more today than the Ambanis were in 2000.

In comparison, Mukesh Ambani today has a personal wealth of Rs 1,60,000 crore (Rs 1,600 billion), and younger brother Anil another Rs 68,500 crore {Rs 685 billion (all numbers are based on stock prices at the end of March 2010)}.

Between them, the brothers now have wealth that is marginally more than Rs 2,28,000 crore (Rs 2,280 billion). They have therefore multiplied their assets seven-fold in 10 years. That's an annual rate of growth of over 19 per cent.

The first decade of the new millennium has been very good for the members of India's most exclusive club - The Business Standard Billionaires club. No fewer than 276 new billionaires have entered the list this year. Thank the boom on the stock market, as these people's wealth is calculated on the basis of their holdings of company stock. The number of billionaires has thus increased five times, from just 120 in 2000 to 602 now.

What hasn't changed, however, is the domination of the manufacturing sector in producing billionaires. A decade ago, the manufacturing sector had 43.6 per cent share of the total net worth of Rs 195,000 crore (Rs 1,950 billion) of India's billionaires. That share has gone up to 67 per cent of the total net worth of Rs 14.77 lakh crore (Rs 1.5 trillion) now.

Within the manufacturing sector, billionaires in the infrastructure segment consisting of oil and gas, engineering and construction, have increased their share from 18.2 per cent to 26.4 per cent.

The others in the manufacturing sector such as auto, cement, chemicals, diversified, metals, pharma and textiles increased their share from 25.4 per cent to 41.60 per cent.

Technology billionaires, who benefitted from the boom a decade ago, saw their share in total wealth declining from 45.6 per cent in 2000 to 10.3 per cent a decade later.

Services sector billionaires, led by telecom, doubled their share in total net worth from 11 per cent a year ago to 22.8 per cent now.

Within the services sector, telecom billionaires topped the ranking table, accounting for 14.4 per cent, or Rs 212,812 crore (Rs 2,128.12 billion), in the total net worth. However, the real winners were from the ferrous and non ferrous metals manufacturers who saw a sharp jump from a miniscule Rs 3,250 crore (Rs 32.5 billion) to as much as Rs 195,383 crore (Rs 1,953.83 billion). Mukesh Ambani led the oil and gas billionaires, sharing 96 per cent of the total net worth of Rs 166,465 crore (Rs 1,664.65 billion).

The rising economy created wealth for everyone. The construction, automobiles and capital goods sector billionaires --- the major beneficiaries of a booming economy --- together were worth Rs 294,235 crore (Rs 2,942.35 billion).

The booming share market saw the rise of investor billionaires and who else but Rakesh Juhunjhunwala and his wife Rekha topped the investor billionaires list with a net worth of Rs 2,563 crore (Rs 25.63 billion).

Wealth creation hit a record this year as India's dollar billionaire club rose to 50 from around 42 in December 2007. India had only 21 dollar billionaires same time last year.

There were many unknown names who entered the Billionaire Club this year -- people like Sanjay Dhingra and Gulshan Kumar, promoters of Kwality Dairy who ranked 100.

As many as 14 new billionaires entered the list on account of initial public offers. DB Realty, which was incorporated three years ago by Vinod Goenka and Shahind Balwa, paid a hefty dividend to promoters making them richer by Rs 7,080 crore (RS 70.80 billion).

Similarly, Ramesh Chandra Agarwal entered the club after the listing of DB Corp which publishes newspapers in three languages across 11 states.  Ramesh Agarwal's net worth on account of the listed entity is at Rs 3,972 crore (Rs 39.72 billion).

Mukesh Ambani, the country's wealthiest Indian, increased his wealth by 38 per cent as his flagship Reliance Industries underperformed the market on account of poor refining margins and the delay in kicking off gas supplies from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

In the overall ranking for 2010, while Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani remained the wealthiest Indian, brother Anil Ambani, the third wealthiest Indian in 2009, slipped to fifth position while the second spot was grabbed by Anil Agarwal, promoter of Vedanta group who rode the price recovery in aluminium and copper and bought iron ore company Sesa Goa.

Azim Premji, the richest Indian during the technology boom, was back in the reckoning at third position, and Sunil Mittal slipped from second position to the fourth position.