Crude oil price crash: Mukesh Ambani loses richest Asian tag to Jack Ma

Saudi Arabia might have fired off the crude oil price offensive against Russia, but business tycoon and Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani was the one who was caught off guard in the crisis. Reliance Industries (RIL) suffered a major jolt as the global rout, owing to coronavirus scare and oil price crash, erased $5.8 billion from Ambani’s net worth on Monday and pushed him to No. 2 on the list of Asia’s richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. 

Ma, the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder who relinquished the No. 1 ranking in mid-2018, is back on top with a $44.5 billion fortune, about $2.6 billion more than Ambani. The crash in oil prices inflicted the third major wound for Ambani, whose company was already caught in the equity markets mayhem triggered by coronavirus and Yes Bank crisis. This was compounded by the fall in crude oil prices on Monday. 

It was Black Monday for markets as international oil prices crashed by close to 31 per cent, the second-largest margin on record, after the disintegration of the OPEC+ alliance triggered an all-out price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. As a result, oil prices plunged to lowest in 29 years as after Saudi Arabia slashed prices and set plans for a big increase in crude production in April.

The share slump comes at a time when RIL is aiming to cut net debt to zero by early 2021. The plan hinges on a proposal to sell a stake in the group’s oil and petrochemicals division to Saudi Aramco. However, the prevailing global and domestic economic conditions put a question on RIL's target. 

While Alibaba has been able to offset its retail losses caused by coronavirus due to spike in demand for its cloud computing services and mobile apps, RIL has no such gains. RIL shares on Monday slumped as much as over 13 per cent, the most since 2009. The Indian equity markets are closed on Tuesday on account of Holi.