Lakshmi Mittal
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal pronunciation (born 15 June
1950) is an Indian steel magnate.
He is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal,
the world’s largest steelmaking company. Mittal owns 41 percent of ArcelorMittal and
holds a 34 percent stake in the Queens Park Rangers F.C. footballteam.
Mittal is the richest man living in Europe
and the richest man with an Asian nationality. Despite being the
wealthiest man in Britain, he does not holdBritish citizenship. He was ranked
the sixth richest person in the world by Forbes in
2011, but dropped to 21st place in 2012, due to having lost $10.4 billion the
previous year. In spite of the drop, Forbes estimates that he
still had a personal wealth of US$20.7 billion in March 2012. He
is also the 47th "most powerful person" of the 70 individuals named
in Forbes' "Most Powerful People" list for 2012. His
daughter Vanisha Mittal's wedding was the second most
expensive in recorded history.
Mittal has been a member of the board of
directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008 and is also member
of the board of directors of the European Aeronautic Defence
and Space Company. He sits on the World Steel Association's executive
committee and is a member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Global Advisory
Council, the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the World
Economic Forum’s International Business Council, and the Presidential
International Advisory Board of Mozambique. He also sits on the advisory
board of the Kellogg School of Management in
the US and is a member of the board of trustees of Cleveland Clinic.
In 2006, The
Sunday Times named him "Business Person of 2006", the Financial
Times named him "Person of the Year", and Time magazine
named him "International Newsmaker of the Year 2006" In
2007, Time magazine included him in their "100
most influential persons in the world".
Early life and career
Lakshmi Narayan Mittal alias Lakshmi Niwas
Mittal was born into a Indian business family in Rajgarh tehsil
(also known as Sadulpur) of Churu district in Rajasthan,
India. His family moved from (Rajgarh) Sadulpur,
Rajasthan to Calcutta in West Bengal. Mittal has two siblings - Pramod Mittal
and Vinod Mittal. He graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta with
a Bachelor of Commerce degree in business
and accounting. His father, Mohan Lal Mittal, ran a steel business, Nippon Denro Ispat. Until the 1990s, the
family's main assets in India were a cold-rolling mill for sheet steels in
Nagpur and an alloy steels plant near Pune. Today, the family business,
including a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is run by Pramod and Vinod,
but Lakshmi has no connection with it
Personal life
His residence at 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens--which was
purchased from Formula One boss Bernie
Ecclestone in 2004 for £57 million (US$128 million)--made it the
world's most expensive house at the time. Mittal's house in Kensington, London is
decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that
supplied the Taj Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been
referred to as the "Taj Mittal". It has 12 bedrooms, an indoor
pool, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars.He is a vegetarian.
Mittal bought No. 9A Palace Greens,
Kensington Gardens, formerly the British Philippines embassy, at £70 million in
2008 for his daughter Vanisha Mittal who is married to Amit Bhatia,
a businessman and a philanthropist. Being a vegetarian,
Mittal threw a lavish 'vegetarian reception' for Vanisha in the Palace of Versailles in France.
Mittal owns three prime properties
collectively worth £500 million on the "Billionaire's Row" at
Kensington Palace Gardens.
In 2005, he also bought a colonial bungalow
for $30 million at No. 22, Aurangzeb
Road in New Delhi, India, the most exclusive street in the city
occupied by embassies and millionaires, and rebuilt it as a house
