Singapore: Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi might have made it to the top, but others like Murli Kewalram Chanrai, Mustaq Ahmad, Sudhir Gupta and Kartar Singh Thakral are also making waves on foreign shores.
The four Indian expats – almost unknown as compared to Mittals and Nooyis, have made it to Singapore's richie-rich club with their rags-to-riches stories recognised by US magazine Forbes.
Chanrai, head of the $3billion Kewalram Chanrai Group; Ahmad, owner of Mustafa Centre in Little India; Gupta, a tyre tycoon; and Thakral, who is into textiles and IT peripherals figure in the first ever richest 40 list of the island nation compiled by Forbes in its Asia September edition.
Murli Kewalram Chanrai, aged 83 and the highest-ranked individual among the four, has been placed at seventh position with a net worth of $880 million.
His Kewalram Chanrai Group is held privately by overseas Indian family trusts and is part of the 150-year-old Chanrai empire.
From a humble beginning in trading business in India and Nigeria in 1860, the family business has grown into a conglomerate with business spanning across textiles, commodities, international trade, IT and real estate with more than 12,000 employees in over 45 countries.
The company's Singapore Stock Exchange listed subsidiary, Olam International, is the world's largest trader of cashews and second-largest trader of cocoa. Olam's customers include global giants like Nestle and Cadbury Shweppes.
Next in line is Sudhir Gupta, aged 47, who has been ranked as Singapore's 13th richest person with a net worth of 320 million dollars.
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India-born Gupta, a Singapore citizen and a PhD in agricultural chemistry from Russia started with a tyre company in Moscow.
After acquiring a Dutch company, he formed Amtel-Vredestein, a tyre company, which was listed on London Stock Exchange last year.
Kartal Singh Thakral, ranked 25th with a net worth of $175 million, joined his family trading business in 1949. His empire spans across various businesses, including the Singapore-listed Thakral Corp, that distributes technology gears for products like iPods in China and India.
The Thakral Group made a humble beginning with 'Punjab Store' in Bangkok in 1905. Thakral, aged 73 currently, moved to Japan in 1936 with the family business of textiles and later expanded into countries like Singapore and China.
Mustaq Ahmad, who happens to be the last among the four at 27th position with a net worth of $165 million, is the owner of one of Singapore's famous landmarks, the Mustafa Centre.
Ahmad, aged 55, runs a bustling store in Singapore's Little India called Mustafa Centre, which is stuffed with more than 150,000 items ranging from beds to spices.
The store was first opened in 1971 by his father, an Indian immigrant, and his uncle and has annual sales of $200 million.
The four Indian expats are collectively worth $1.54 billion, which accounts for more than five per cent of the combined net worth of $28 billion accumulated by Singapore's 40 richest people.
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