Billionaires with diversified businesses top the Forbes India Rich List

Health care and information technology contribute the second- and third-highest number of billionaires to the list

Published: Oct 17, 2023 03:34:01 PM IST

Updated: Oct 17, 2023 04:05:20 PM IST

(Clockwise from left) Mukesh Ambani, Cyrus Poonawalla and Shiv Nadar

Indian billionaires with diversified businesses have claimed the top spots on the Forbes India Rich List 2023. The net worth of 17 billionaires with diversified companies is $285.8 billion, one-third of the total net worth of the top 100 billionaires.

Among the 17 categories of businesses in the Forbes India Rich List, the diversified business category has some of the most prominent businessmen in India. It includes business tycoons with cross-industry interests, such as Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Kumar Mangalam Birla, and Shapoor Mistry.

Ambani is the wealthiest person in the diversified category and in the overall list, with a net worth of $92 billion. His business covers the telecom, oil, energy, retail, finance and media sectors, among many others.

Other prominent names in the diversified category are the Godrej Family, Bajaj Family, Hinduja Family, Murugappa Family, Sudhir and Samir Mehta, Ajay Piramal, Harsh Goenka and Anand Mahindra. They have businesses across different industries, such as finance, IT, manufacturing, automotive, and real estate.

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The diversified business conglomerates are also among the oldest companies in India, with some being over a century old. Hinduja, Birla, Tata, Godrej, Bajaj and Murugappa Group are among the earliest conglomerates in India. Starting with a single industry, these companies gradually expanded their business to different sectors, transforming themselves into cross-industry leaders.

The second leading category in the Rich List is health care, which features 17 billionaires. Their net worth amounts to $106 billion.

The wealthiest billionaire in the health care category is Cyrus Poonawalla, with a net worth of $20.7 billion. He is chairman of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing company. He is followed by Dilip Shanghvi, founder of Sun Pharmaceuticals, with a net worth of $19 billion. Other notable names in the health care category are Ramesh and Rajeev Juneja of Mankind Pharma, Pankaj Patel of Zydus Lifesciences, Yusuf Hamied of Cipla and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon.

Also read: Forbes India Rich List 2023: Meet the newcomers and returnees on the list

The information technology category is the third largest category in the Forbes India Rich List 2023, with seven billionaires with a total net worth of $58 billion. It includes prominent industry leaders such as Shiv Nadar, Azim Premji, NR Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani.

Other prominent categories on the Rich List are fashion and retail, metal and mining, and finance and investment. These categories include well-known businesspeople such as Radhakishan Damani, Savitri Jindal, and Uday Kotak.