#CoronavirusImpact: Mukesh Ambani lost $300 million/day in two months
The outbreak of coronavirus over the last two months has left economies reeling, business disrupted, and people jobless. It has been a dark time, and that is not just for us but also for billionaires around the world, who have lost billions of dollars from their wealth in the wake of this global health crisis. Here's how it has impacted their wealth.
According to Shanghai-based Hurun Report Inc., the coronavirus pandemic has wiped off $408 billion from the combined wealth of the world's top 100 billionaires. "The last two months have wiped out all wealth made in the past 2.5 years," Hurun Report Chairman Rupert Hoogewerf said, while noting that over a quarter of this wealth, $125 billion, was lost by the ten richest alone.
The billionaires who witnessed the biggest drop in the last two months ending March 31, 2020, were Bernard Arnault of LVMH fame, Reliance MD and Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and Berkshire Hathaway's CEO Warren Buffett. Arnault lost about $30 billion or 28% of his net-worth, while Ambani - the richest man of India - and Buffett witnessed a drop of $19 billion ($300 million/day) each.
Along with Ambani, OYO Rooms' co-founder Ritesh Agarwal, who was hailed as the second-youngest billionaire after Kylie Jenner, suffered from the crisis and fell out of the global billionaires club. Business magnates Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar, and Uday Kotak lost their spot in Hurun's top 100 billionaires list after losing $6 billion, $5 billion, and $4 billion from their respective wealth.
"India's top entrepreneurs have been hit by a 26% drop in the stock markets and a 5.2% drop in the value of the rupee compared with the US dollar," Anas Junaid, MD at Hurun Report India, said, while explaining the wealth drop of Indian billionaires.
The economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis might continue in the near future, as billions of people still remain under lockdown and there is no saying when the infection rates would fall around the world. The disease began spreading from the Chinese city of Wuhan more than three months ago and has killed over 75,000 people so far.
