Among the 828 individuals across India who featured in the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2020 (a compilation of Indian individuals with a wealth of Rs 1,000 crore or more), 62 of them hail from the Telugu states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, according to IIFL Wealth.
From AP and Telangana, Chigurupati Krishna Prasad of Granules India and C Sathyanarayana of Laurus Labs gained wealth by 218% and 210% in 2020 respectively, thereby becoming two of the top five wealth gainers in India.
C Sathyanarayana who previously worked for companies such as Ranbaxy and Matrix Labs, founded Laurus Labs in 2005. “In 2015, with an investment of INR 450 Cr, Laurus entered the formulations business and over the least three years, the company reported a 165 times growth in revenue to INR 825 Cr,” Hurun report says.
Chigurupati Krishna Prasad’s pharma company, Granules India has made new product additions in the Active Pharma Ingredients segment, and has had a 257% increase in its share price this year.
The number of USD billionaires from AP and Telangana increased from five to nine this year, according to the report.
The top 10 wealthiest families from AP and Telangana are Murali Divi and family (Divi’s Laboratories), B Parthasaradhi Reddy and family (Hetero Drugs), K Satish Reddy and family (Dr. Reddy's Laboratories), P Pitchi Reddy and PV Krishna Reddy (Megha Engineering & Infrastructures), GV Prasad and G Anuradha (Dr. Reddy's Laboratories), Rameswar Rao Jupally and family (My Home Industries), M Satyanarayana Reddy and family (MSN Laboratories), VC Nannapaneni (Natco Pharma) and C Visweswara Rao and family (Navayuga Engineering).
Murali Divi and family have Rs 49,000 crore wealth according to the report. Murali Divi who hails from Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh is a US trained scientist who came back to India in 1984 and started his pharmaceutical company in 1990. Forbes estimates that Divi increased his wealth to $6.8 billion, of which nearly $3 billion was made during the pandemic.
The cumulative wealth of individuals in AP and Telangana registered a 34% increase as compared to last year. Medha Servo Drives, Virchow Laboratories and Singhania Foods International contribute Rs 7,200 crore, Rs 4,000 crore and Rs 3,800 crore respectively to the AP and Telangana wealth list.
With a wealth of Rs 4,700 crore, Mahima Datla and family is the only woman entrant to feature on the list. According to the report, ‘with a wealth of INR 6,800 Cr, Krishna Chivukula,73, of Indo-MIM ranked 182nd in IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2020 and is a new entrant. His flagship company, Indo-MIM is the World’s largest metal injection moulding company’.
Among the 62 wealthiest individuals, 51 hail from Hyderabad, three from Visakhapatnam, and two each from Ranga Reddy and Secunderabad. Hyderabad in fact has the most number of billionaires after Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai.
In terms of the number of individuals in the list, the pharmaceutical sector accounts for 32% of the richest individuals in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, followed by the food processing industry with 11% and the construction and engineering sector with 8%.