E-commerce adds more Indians into Richie Rich list

The booming e-commerce sector is adding more millionaires into the super-rich list, as per a list compiled by Shanghai-based Hurun Report.

Flipkart promoters Sachin and and Binny Bansal - who are unrelated to each other - top the list with a net worth of Rs 9,000 crore each,.

The Hurun India Rich List has Indians with a cut-off of Rs 1,600 crore ($250 million) in net worth, calculated at the end of 31 July 2015 when the exchange rate was at 64 to the US dollar.

In dollar terms, e-commerce shows a 48% spike in wealth for existing names and a 126% spike for the new entrants on the list. Recent fundraising pushed up valuations significantly for all e-commerce companies.

Just Dial, however, is an exception to the list despite soaring valuations in the industry; Venkatachalam Sthanu Subramani lost nearly 80% wealth in Rupee terms due to share devaluation of Just Dial.

“Despite the weakening of the stock market and the Rupee, the Hurun India Rich List expanded by 76 entrepreneurs, showing the resilience and dynamism of the Indian private sector,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, general manager (India) Hurun Report.

As per the report, India had a mixed year with some sectors such as mobile phone and e-commerce doing well and other such as real estate and energy had a bad year. Overall, it was an average year of India’s entrepreneur. Besides, owing to a 6% devaluation of Indian Rupee against the US dollar and a lackluster performance of key sectors such as steel, energy and real estate, the average wealth dropped 7%.

The good news is that India is adding more billionaires. Number of dollar billionaires has increased to 124 from 109 last year. The inaugural Hurun India Rich List had just 59 billionaires in 2012. Of these, 36 have migrated out of India and are non-residents like Micky Jagtiani, the owner of Lifestyle branded retail stores in the Gulf region.

The report says 13 Indians saw their wealth double year on year with the fastest riser was Dhiraj Rajaram (40) of Mu Sigma, a data analytics business, shooting up 593% to Rs 17,790 crore.

As expected, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, holds on to his position as the richest man in India with a fortune of Rs 1,60,951 crore, down by 3% from last year. Sun Pharma’s promoter Dilip Shanghvi was India’s second richest billionaire followed by the Hinduja family. Interestingly, the Bloomberg Rich list does not add Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel – who is number eight in Hurun list -- and the Hinduja family in its top 10 list.