Meet Bihar’s richest man who never went to college, now has Rs 16,000 crore net worth

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated: Aug 24, 2023, 10:22 AM IST

Vedanta Resources Ltd. is prepared to pay $250 million owed to suppliers in Zambia, before regaining possession of the copper mines that the government of the southern African country seized from them.

Anil Agarwal, founder and chairman of Vedanta Group, a company he founded in 1976.  The business first produced cables before becoming listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2003. In contrast, Agarwal took the business private in October 2019.

Vedanta Resources Ltd. is prepared to pay $250 million owed to suppliers in Zambia, before regaining possession of the copper mines that the government of the southern African country seized more than four years ago, 

About Anil Agarwal:
He was born in 1954 in a Marwari family in Patna and went from managing a small scrap metal business to becoming one of India's richest tycoons with a commercial empire encompassing mining and petroleum four decades ago.

After completing high school he didn’t continue with his studies and decided to help his father in the business. 

In the middle of the 1970s, Agarwal started dealing with scrap metal. In 1976, he purchased Shamsher Sterling Corporation. Ten years later, he founded Sterlite Industries, which in 1993 established India's first copper smelter and refinery in the private sector. A few years later, he entered the mining industry, purchasing 51% of the Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) and approximately 65% of the state-run HZL (Hindustan Zinc Limited).

In order to access foreign capital, he founded Vedanta Resources in London in 2003. The company is a worldwide diversified natural resources conglomerate with holdings in oil and gas, aluminium, zinc, lead, silver, copper, iron ore, and power generation.

Vedanta has partnered with Taiwan's Foxconn to jointly invest $20 billion to build semiconductor and display plants in Gujarat.

He founded the Vedanta Foundation in 1992 to carry out charitable projects and initiatives. He has promised to contribute 75% of his family's wealth to charity, citing Bill Gates as his inspiration, Business Standard reported. In 2022, according to Forbes, Anil Agarwal has a net worth of $2.01 billion.