Top five richest lose over $10bn in market fall

The rout on stock market has left no one untouched — not even the country’s richest billionaires — with the top five led by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani losing more than $10 billion in just about a fortnight.
Besides Mr Ambani, those who were accumulating wealth from a surge in bourses till a few days back and subsequently saw billions of dollars being wiped off include younger brother Anil, realty giant DLF’s Kushal Pal Singh, telecom major Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal and Wipro chairman Azim Premji.
India’s five richest persons, based on value of their stock holdings, have seen their cumulative wealth plummeting by $10.05 billion since July 27, the day bourses began their slide on concerns emanating in the US subprime lending market that has since spread across the world.
Their combined wealth has gone down to $116.75 billion from a high of $126.8 billion on July 26. Mr Mukesh Ambani, the richest of all, saw the biggest fall with his net worth plummeting by $2.6 billion from $40.5 billion on July 26 to $37.9 billion as on August 10.
Mr Anil Ambani, the second richest, is close behind with a fall of $2.4 billion. His net worth, based on his promoter holding in companies like Reliance Communications and Reliance Capital, has dropped to $23.7 billion on August 10, from $26.1 billion on July 26. The third-biggest plunge has come for telecom czar Sunil Mittal, whose wealth dropped by $2.1 billion to $19.7 billion.
Kushal Pal Singh, who became the country’s third rupee trillionaire has seen the fourth-biggest fall of $1.9 billion while Wipro chief Azim Premji has seen close to $1 billion going away from his kitty, taking his net worth to $13.8 billion.