Unitech's Chandra pips Mittal as richest self-made billionaire

NEW DELHI: Real estate giant Unitech's Ramesh Chandra on Tuesday elbowed out Bharti Group's chief Sunil Mittal as India's richest self-made billionaire, although by a small margin. According to a Forbes magazine list published last month, Mittal was named as India's richest self-made billionaire, followed by Chandra.
The net worth of the two - 12.5 billion dollars for Mittal and 11.6 billion dollars for Chandra - was calculated by Forbes on the basis of the share prices of their group companies Bharti Airtel and Unitech as of November 2.
Unitech's shares today rose 8.5 per cent to close at 479.80 at the BSE, while those of Bharti surged 6.2 per cent to Rs 1,030.70. Bharti shares scaled a life-time high of Rs 1,149 earlier in the day.
Unitech's share price had risen 27.3 per cent from Rs 479.80 on November 2, while that of Bharti Airtel gained 15.2 per cent from Rs 894.85 on the same day.
Considering a similar change in their net worth, Chandra's net worth would currently stand at 14.76 billion dollars, as against Mittal's 14.39 billion dollar.
According to information available with stock exchanges, Unitech has a total promoter holding of 74.56 per cent, while the same in Bharti Airtel is 65.89 per cent, which includes 45.32 per cent with Bharti Telecom Ltd.
However, it could not be independently ascertained as to control of how much holding exactly lies with Chandra and Mittal in their respective groups.
Based on today's share price, Bharti has a market cap of Rs 1,95,610.02 crore (about 50 billion dollars), while that of Unitech is Rs 77,741.58 crore (about 19.8 billion dollars).