Mukesh Ambani loses crown of richest Asian to Alibaba founder Jack Ma

Indian business magnate Mukesh Ambani has lost his position as the richest man in Asia after the oil magnate lost a whopping $5.8 billion dollars in a single day as the share price of his company Reliance Industries fell by 12 per cent on Monday.

Reliance Industries is primarily engaged in oil refining and petrochemicals business. It took a direct hitas crude oil prices crashed on Monday.Oil pricesfellby 30 per cent, its lowest in years following a price warbetween the two largest oil producers - Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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The price war comes as a double whammy for the global economy already suffering due to the coronavirus.

Ambani's crown of the richest Asian has now gone to China's Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

The Alibaba group founder has a fortune of $44.5 billion dollars, a comfortable lead of about $2.6 billion over Mukesh Ambani's wealth.

While Jack Ma's Alibaba has also shed in value, the damage has been mitigated by increased demand for its cloud computing services and mobile apps.

Mukesh Ambani's sources of wealth are multiple. He is the chairman and managing director Reliance industries limited. The company is the first-ever Indian company to have crossed a market cap of Rs 10 lakh crore. Currently, it is capped at just over Rs 7 lakh crores.

Mukesh Ambani currently holds 42 per cent shares in the company. The conglomerate is engaged in several businesses including retail, telecom, broadband, media and others.

However, the major chunk of Reliance Industries revenues comes from its operations in the oil and petrochemicals sector. The Mumbai-based company claims that it has the largest oil refinery complex in the world.

Their petrochemical and natural gas business is often used to support other subsidiaries of the conglomerate. However, in a pivot towards diversification and new businesses, Reliance Industries has piled on billions of dollars of debt over the years.

In order to clear off the liabilities, the company has entered into a deal with Saudi Aramco putting up 20 per cent of its shares for sale but the deal is on the back burner for now.

With oil consumption going down and prices also suffering, Reliance Industries was bound to take a hit.

After Monday's oil crash, Mukesh Ambani is now the nineteenth richest man in the world, just a spot below Jack Ma.