Patanjali CEO Balkrishna ranked 8th richest with Rs 70,000 crore wealth

Mumbai: Acharya Balkrishna, the brother of yoga expert and founder of FMCG company Patanjali Baba Ramdev, and Radhakishan Damani of D-Mart have found their place along with Mukesh Ambani's in the Hurun India rich list 2017.

A massive rally in the stock market and the resultant jump in Reliance stocks saw the wealth of Ambani shooting up by a massive 58 per cent to Rs 2.57 trillion this year, says the report which is into the sixth year.

Ambani retains the richest Indian title for the sixth year running and this year he has climbed to top 15 in the Hurun global rich list for the first time. His wealth is 50 per cent more than GDP of Yemen, the country of his birth.

"Balkrishna, CEO of Patanjali is now among the top 10 rich people in the country. Damani, the new retail king, of D-Mart is the biggest gainer with wealth increase of 320 per cent. The blockbuster listing of Avenue Supermarts, also added eight new entries in the rich list," Hurun said in a statement.

Balkrishna rose to the eighth position from 25th last year, after seeing his wealth grow by 173 per cent to Rs 70,000 crore. Patanjali, with a turnover of Rs 10,561 crore in FY17 has been a close competition to major global brands.

The biggest gainer (321 per cent) was Damani, the 62- year-old chairman of Avenue Supermarts, followed by Anurang Jain and family of Endurance Tech with a rise of 286 per cent.

The wealth calculation was as of July 31, when the rate of exchange to the dollar was 64.1, it added.

At 34, Divyank Turakhia of Media.Net is the youngest self-made billionaire. He joins five other self-made individuals under-40, all from new technology businesses.

The 42-year-old Bengaluru-based Ambiga Subramanian is the youngest self-made woman in the list. She sold her shares in Mu-Sigma, the data analytics unicorn that she co-founded. There are 51 women in the rich list this year.

The cut-off to top 100 has more than doubled to Rs 8,400 crore since 2013. There are 136 billionaires this year, a record since the inception of Hurun Rich List in 2012.

In terms of cities, Mumbai tops the list with 182 individuals followed by New Delhi (117) and Bengaluru (51). Chennai and Kanpur enter the top 10 cities for the first time with 15 and 8 new additions, respectively.

On average, wealth of the listers has risen by 11 per cent over 2016 and at least, 16 in the list saw their wealth double this year. While the number of dollar billionaires jumped to 136 from 126 in 2016 as many as 100 individuals saw their wealth decline.

Till July 31, Sensex gained 16.1 per cent or 23.3x over 19.6x on July 31, 2016, while BSE Mid Cap rose 16.4 per cent and BSE Small Cap rose 2.72 per cent. The rupee declined 3 per cent against the dollar. "The market capitalisation of all listed firms is now equivalent to 84 per cent of nominal GDP- highest in the emerging markets," says Anas Rahman Junaid of Hurun Report India.

The 24-year-old Eklavya Juneja of Mankind Pharma is the youngest person in the list with a 12 per cent stake.

Kushal Pal Singh of DLF is the richest real estate billionaire with Rs 27,400 crore. Mangal Prabhat Lodha of the Lodha Group is the richest private real estate developer in the list with a wealth of Rs 15,700 crore followed by Jithendra Virwani of Embassy Property with Rs 8,800 crore.

With 26 new entrants, Ahmedabad breaks into top 5 and with 22 and 11 listers, Chennai and Kanpur respectively breaks into top 10 cities. There are 18 new cities in this year's list. Interestingly, Udaipur has three listers, Vadodara has 2, and Kanchipuram and Faridabad has one each.

The Hurun report is a luxury publishing and events group set up in London in 1998 with strong presence in China.