This 72-Year Old Indian Has Just Become Asia’s Richest Lady! How This Happened? Who Is She?
Savitri Jindal has overtaken China’s Yang Huiyan with a fortune of about $24 billion to become the richest woman in Asia.
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The rout
Jindal trumped Huiyan with China’s real estate crisis, heavily impacting Huiyan’s net worth given that she controls China’s largest real estate developer Country Garden Holdings.
The company lost $11 billion this year.
Savitri Jindal is India’s richest woman and the only woman in the top 10 of Forbes’ list of richest Indians in 2021, holding a net worth of $11.3 billion thanks to her conglomerate Jindal Group.
Jindal’s company is involved in industries including metals and power generation.
Brief history- Yang
It’s been a dramatic turn of events for Yang who in 2005 inherited her father’s stake in the real estate developer, becoming one of the youngest billionaires in the world.
She held the title for the past five years reflecting the rapid growth of China’s property sector.
She had in 2018 famously made $ 2billion in 4 days.
Now it all came crashing down.
Misfortune
As earlier stated her fortune has more than halved this year to $11 billion.
Her Country Garden, China’s largest property developer, said it needed to raise equity at a discount, causing the stock to plunge to its lowest since 2016.
She owns about 60% of Country Garden and a 43% stake in its management-services unit, a lofty achievement being in only her forties.
Brief history- Jindal
A mother of nine children, Jindal was Born in a town called Tinsukia in Assam on March 20, 1950 and married OP Jindal in the 1970s.
Her spouse was not only a successful businessman but also a minister in the Haryana Government and a member of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha from Hisar constituency.
Jindal, 72, became the chairwoman of the Jindal Group shortly after her husband, founder OP Jindal, died in a helicopter crash in 2005.
Today, she is the Chairperson Emeritus of the OP Jindal Group, whose revenue grew by four times under her leadership.
The company is the third-largest producer of steel in India and also operates in cement, energy and infrastructure.
Jindal’s wealth
Jindal’s net worth has fluctuated wildly as of late.
Back in April 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic it fell to $3.2 billion.
Then it hit a meteoric rise of $15.6 billion in April 2022 post Russia’s war on Ukraine which sent commodity prices soaring.
Political stints
Unlike Yang Huiyan who maintains a low profile, Jindal lives an active public life.
She was elected to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha from Hisar constituency in 2005 after her husband’s death.
She lost the seat after the 2014 elections.
She is a member of the Indian National Congress party.
Bringing a refreshing take, she famously said in an interview to Forbes in 2010 that the women in the Jindal family do not venture out.
“We remain in charge of the house while the men take care of everything outside”, were her words.
[…] Savitri Jindal is an Indian businesswoman and a politician. Pegged as India’s richest woman, she is currently serving as the chairman of the Jindal Group, which was founded by her late husband. Om Prakash Jindal died in 2005, and she along with her sons, has been looking after the company ever since. Her current net worth is close to $11.8 billion. […]