Jack Ma replaces Mukesh Ambani as Asia’s richest man

Mukesh Ambani is no longer Asia’s richest man, relinquishing the title to Jack Ma after oil prices collapsed along with global stocks.

The rout exacerbated by mounting fears that the spread ofthe novel coronavirus will thrust the world into a recession, erased $5.8billion from Ambani’s net worth on Monday and dropped him to No. 2 on the listof Asia’s richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ma,the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder who relinquished the No. 1 ranking inmid-2018, is back on top with a $44.5 billion fortune, about $2.6 billion morethan Ambani.

   

Oil plunged the most in 29 years as Saudi Arabia and Russiavowed to pump more in a struggle for market share just as the coronavirus isspurring the first decline in demand in more than a decade. That raisesquestions about whether Ambani’s flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. will be ableto cut net debt to zero by early 2021, as he has pledged. The plan hinges on aproposal to sell a stake in the group’s oil and petrochemicals division toSaudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s biggest producer.

While the coronavirus has curtailed some of Alibaba’sbusinesses, the damage has been mitigated by increased demand for its cloudcomputing services and mobile apps.

Reliance Industries, by comparison, has no such silverlining. The Indian company’s shares plunged 12% on Monday, the most since 2009,extending this year’s decline to 26%. Alibaba’s American depositary receiptshave slipped 6.8% so far in 2020.

Few of the world’s billionaires fared well in Monday’scollapse as the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each plunged morethan 7.5%, the most since the 2008 financial crisis, threatening to end thelongest bull market in history. But no one did worse than those whose fortunesare underpinned by oil. Wildcatter Harold Hamm’s fortune was cut almost in halfto $2.4 billion and fellow oil magnate Jeff Hildebrand lost $3 billion, bumpingboth from Bloomberg’s 500-member wealth ranking.

In its pivot toward new businesses such astelecommunications, technology and retail, Reliance Industries piled onbillions of dollars of debt over the years.

Ambani, 62, could soon bounce back from the setback, saidHarish H.V., managing partner at ECube Investment Advisors in Bengaluru.

“The game isn’t over,” he said. “Ambani hassuccessfully built a robust business model which would keep him in the game.Moreover, his telecom business will start yielding results in comingyears.”

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