Best Indian Businessmen

Laid the ground work for India's first steel company (Tata Steel), first major Indian power company (Tata Hydro-Electric Power), and India's first technical education institute (Tata Institute of Science at Bangalore).

Founder of India's biggest business house. The group has over 200 companies. Market cap of the 45 major companies as on 31.3.99 was Rs 22,345 crores.

Built the Empress Mills, the Svadeshi Mill, the Taj Mahal Hotel, Institute of Science.

Introduced the equity cult to thousands of ordinary Indians. Fanning out to tap rural stock exchanges, he taught people who would never have thought of investing in shares how to buy them, to track the price movements of scrips, to deal with stock brokers, and to develop the habit of reading financial dailies and stock market newsletters.

In the 1980s, an overwhelming majority of Reliance shareholders held less than 100 shares, and one in four Indian investors owned shares in Reliance. Dhirubhai single-handedly energised the Indian capital market. It can be justifiably argued that Ambani paved the way for the financial revolution currently sweeping through India.

Smashed Scottish jute monopoly by building Birla Jute.

Built the Birla group into India's second largest business dynasty after the Tatas. When he started his business career, the Birlas were worth Rs 20 lakhs in 1914. By the time GD died in 1983, the aggregate assets of the group's 200 odd companies had crossed Rs 2,500 crores, sales were over Rs 3,000 crores. Amazing growth -- faster than Reliance.

The first large Indian multinational -- that too in steel. Presence in nine countries.

In less than a decade, Lakshmi Mittal built Ispat International from a wire rod manufacturer in Indonesia to the fourth largest steel producer in the world, largely through a series of strategic acquisitions.