Asia’s richest man and Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani added more to his wealth in 2019 than Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Alibaba founder Jack Ma, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ambani’s net worth was $61 billion in 2019, up by $16.5 billion. By comparison, Ma added $11.3 billion to his fortune while Bezos lost $13.2 billion on account of a costly divorce.
Ambani had the largest gains of an Asian billionaire, and the seventh-largest amongst all the billionaires tracked by the index. He is now the 12th richest man in the world.
RIL has had a good year, overall, starting the year by becoming the first private firm to report more than Rs 10,000 in quarterly net profit. In 2019, its shares grew by 40 per cent overall, driven by strong growth in its energy and telecom businesses. The announcement of ARAMCO picking up a 20 per cent stake in RIL—a deal valued as among India’s largest FDIs yet—as well as the revenue losses faced by Jio’s competitors in the wake of the TRAI AGR decision helped the company expand its presence across multiple sectors.
Reliance has been growing its businesses from energy to data and retail, with acquisitions and investments in e-commerce, logistics, and digital streaming to name a few.
In addition, the company's plan to become a zero-debt company by 2021 built up investor confidence, with Ambani aiming to give Reliance "one of the strongest balance sheets in the world".
In November, Ambani became the 9th richest man globally as RIL stocks breached the 10 lakh crore market cap for the first time for an Indian company.
Julia Flesher Koch, wife of David Koch, topped the list with a year-to-year change in fortune of $63.1 billion—after her husband passed away in August.
Bezos’s ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, was second adding $36 billion to her wealth in what is now the world’s biggest divorce settlement.
Figures like Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Mark Zuckerberg added $22.4 billion, $19.4 billion and $26.7 billion to their fortunes respectively.
