14 Indian business families including Ambani, Premji among Asia’s richest 50

Fourteen of India’s top business families have made it to a new Forbes list of Asia’s 50 Richest Families, the highest from any country in the region. The top 10 include the Ambani, Premji and Mistry families & Indian-origin Hindujas, who are shown as residents of the UK. The Lee family, whose Samsung group revenues in 2014 were equivalent to 22 per cent of South Korea’s GDP, led the list. To qualify, a family’s wealth & participation has to extend at least three generations. Thus some of the region’s biggest names, such as Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, have not been listed. Though nearly half the families are of Chinese descent, none is based in the mainland, where conglomerates are young. The Ambani family fortune includes the wealth of brothers Mukesh & Anil, both of whom inherited most of their father’s fortune on his death in 2002 but opted to do business separately, Forbes said. The minimum combined net wealth to qualify for the list was $2.9 billion.