Sunil Mittal 3rd richest self-made billionaire in Asia: Forbes

NEW YORK: Bharti Airtel's Sunil Mittal has been ranked third in Forbes magazine's 20 self-made Asian billionaires list, which also has five other Indians including Unitech's Ramesh Chandra, Suzlon's Tulsi Tanti, Gautam Adani, G M Rao and Uday Kotak.

In the latest list of 20, Sunil Mittal has grabbed the third place with a net worth of 12.5 billion dollars while Ramesh Chandra is at the fifth place with an estimated worth of 11.6 billion dollars.

Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon Energy holds the fifth position, while Adani Group's Guatam Adani is ranked 10th, G M Rao of GMR Infrastructure 13th and Uday Kotak of Kotak Group 20th.

The top two positions have been cornered by two  billionaires from Hong Kong -- Li Ka-shing (23 billion dollars) and Lee Shau Kee (17 billion dollars).

Hong Kong is represented by five people, while China and Malaysia have two each.

According to the US business magazine, Sunil Mittal began his first business in 1976 with "1,500 dollars borrowed from his father. Later, co-founded Bharti Group with two brothers.

Now, their Bharti Airtel is nation's largest mobile phone operator, with more than 50 million customers."

Sixty-eight-year-old Ramesh Chandra studied structural engineering in the UK before moving into real estate business.

The publicly-listed Unitech, run by his two sons, is currently expanding into developing theme parks and shopping malls.

Tulsi Tanti and family estimated to be worth 10 billion dollars is described as a former textile trader who turned to alternative energy when rising power costs threatened to put him out of business.

"With three brothers, he started a wind power venture in 1995. Now, his Suzlon Energy is the largest wind power company by market cap in the world," the magazine said.

Interestingly, Gautam Adani who is worth 6.7 billion dollars, dropped out of school and started his group way back in the 1980s. He began importing scarce plastic polymers and the company was listed in 1994. Later, he expanded his business into ports, call centers and edible oils.

Net worths are based on the most recently published Forbes magazine figures. March billionaire figures were used for Hong Kong and Taiwan. Regional rich list valuations were used for the other fortunes, it said.

Meanwhile, G M Rao -- estimated to be worth 6.2 billion dollars -- is described as the son of a commodities trader.

"(He) joined the family's small commodities trading company before moving into sugar and alloys. In 1996, he bought a license to build a power plant in Chennai when his original idea, a brewery, was stalled by prohibition. Since then he has won bids to modernise airports at Hyderabad and Delhi. In July, he won a 2.7 billion dollars contract to build a new airport terminal in Istanbul in a consortium with
Malaysia Airports," Forbes said.

An ardent cricket fan, Uday Kotak, who is worth 4.6 billion dollars, left the family's trading business to start a finance company. He later converted the firm into a bank in 2003 and "stock soaring since buying out longtime partner Goldman Sachs last year."

Taiwan, Japan and Singapore have one 'self-made billionaire' each in the top 20 list.

Vladimir Kim (worth 5.5 billion dollars) ranked at the 14th position is from Kazakhstan and is head of Kazakhmys "world's 10th largest copper producer."

"...all of these tycoons made their money the old fashioned way--hard work, determination, ingenuity and a little bit of luck," the magazine said in an accompanying report.

"Although these 20 have diverse interests in industries ranging from plastics to telecommunications, property seems to be the most lucrative industry for the self-starters. Seven entrepreneurs made all or part of their fortunes in real estate, more than any other industry," it added.