Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani 5th richest after Mark Zuckerberg
Mumbai/IBNS: Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani has been ranked the fifth richest man in the world by the Real-Time Billionaires List by Forbes magazine.
He is now just under Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg whose net worth is pegged at $89 billion.
On July 10, Ambani had surpassed Warren Buffet as his net worth touched $68.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The 63-year-old business tycoon occupied the fifth spot on the real-time ranking by Forbes, which estimated his net worth at $75 billion (Rs 5.61 lakh crore at $1 = Rs 74.76), media reports said.
Ambani leapfrogged two positions in a little over 10 days as Reliance Industries' shares soared to an all-time high of Rs 2,010 on Wednesday, recording a 35% growth. The group's market capitalization has touched Rs 12.70 lakh crore, said reports.
According to the Forbes list, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos tops the list, with a net worth of $185.8 billion, the reports added.
The phenomenal growth in RIL's shares comes after lucrative deals with several international companies. It sold 33 per cent stake in Jio platforms to tech giants Facebook, Google, Qualcomm Ventures etc.
Google, committed a capital infusion of Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.7 per cent stake in RIL's Jio platforms, while it garnered over $15 billion in investments from companies including Facebook Inc. and Silver Lake, etc.
In the second week of July, bp paid RIL $1 billion for a 49% stake in the joint venture Reliance BP Mobility Limited (RBML).
These, including a rights issue of Rs 53,000 crore, helped Reliance Industries become net debt-free much ahead of its March 2021 target.
"I have fulfilled my promise to the shareholders by making Reliance net debt-free much before our original schedule of 31st March 2021," he said, after his group achieved the milestone.
In the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM), on July 15, Mukesh Ambani spoke about Jio having entered into an agreement with Google to develop-android based operating system, the AR-enabled Jio Glass and the Jio TV+ and others.
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