Mumbai: Concerns that a new virus outbreak in China could spread to the rest of the world have sent India’s billionaire tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani’s combined net worth down by a very significant 52,000 crore rupees (approximately £5.2bn) in six days. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index said the fall was due to the HMPV virus scare that had shaken global markets.
Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani—worth 2.59 billion dollars (about £2.04 billion)—sees a drop like that. His net worth currently stands at 90.5 billion dollars, putting him 17th in the world in terms of wealth. By over 2%, shares in Ambani’s Reliance Industries tumble on Monday, accounting for a large part of this fall.
Markets have been beating up on Gautam Adani, the second richest person in Asia and 19th worldwide. His total net worth fell by a total of 74.5 billion dollars, as his wealth decreased by a whopping 3.53 billion dollars, or around £2.78 billion. Throughout Monday, share prices of Adani Group companies took a beating across the board.
It has been found to be the primary catalyst behind the stock market plunge as the HMPV virus scare grips China with its tentacles, hitting Indian billionaires. Most interesting, of course, is that while the virus has spread so much farther, limited to America and Europe, it has been fairly contained, meaning it has had less of a global impact than it might have had and has compressed rather than expanded the numbers of billionaires (unlike the coronavirus itself).
It shone light on how quickly billionaire fortunes can evaporate and how sensitive they are to shakeups of the global health scare and market sentiment. And so, the financial world waits anxiously for these titans of industry to learn how to weather the tumultuous waters still ahead.
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