A rise in share prices and recent fund-raising from global investors enabled billionaire Mukesh Ambani to move one notch up to emerge as the fourth richest man in the world.
Now, with a networth of $90 billion, Asia’s richest person unseated French multi-national luxury goods conglomerate, Louis Vuitton SE group head, Bernard Arnault, to reach the slot. Arnault, Europe’s wealthiest man, now ranks fifth with a networth of $86 billion, according to data collated by Hurun Research.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with a networth of $190 billion, tops the chart, followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($115 billion) and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($100 billion) in third position.
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“The recent rise in Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL) share price seems to have coalesced with its intention to acquire Future Retail. This further evidences RIL’s strategy of building a wider retail network, fortified by Jio platforms,” Hurun India Managing Director and Chief Researcher, Anas Rahman Junaid, told BusinessLine .
According to media reports, RIL was in advanced stages of discussions to acquire the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group’s retail and lifestyle businesses in an all-cash deal worth ₹24,000-27,000 crore. Further, the recent fund-raising also led to an increase in Ambani’s networth.
As of July 15, Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Asia’s RIL, had raised a total of ₹1.52-lakh crore from global financial and strategic investors, including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR Mubadala and Google.
Earlier in April, following the ₹43,574-crore Facebook-Jio Platforms deal, Mukesh Ambani clawed back his position as Asia’s richest man, which he had lost to Chinese technology giant Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, in March.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett with a networth of $80 billion ranks sixth in Hurun Research’s global rich list, followed by Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ($78 billion) and Google co-founder Sergey Brin ($69 billion) in seventh and eighth positions.
Google co-founder Larry Page was ranked ninth with a networth of $68 billion and Spanish businessman and founder and former chairman of Inditex fashion group Amancio Ortega Gaona came in 10th with a networth of $66 billion.
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