UK list suffers 'curse of Lakshmi'

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" justify="">LONDON: Britain''s Asian Rich List, which reveals the community''s collective wealth to have almost doubled to £ 25 billion in the past 12 months – may be suffering from the so-called ''curse of Lakshmi'', eight days ahead of its launch here.<br /><br />The Rich List, which promises to "reveal the richest man in Britain", is manifestly bedevilled by last week''s news that steel titan Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the world''s third richest man, just two steps behind Microsoft''s Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffet.<br /><br />But there appears to be no anticipation and certainly hardly any appetite for the forthcoming Asian rich league table, now that Lakshmi Mittal has achieved the eye-popping celebrity of being one of the three richest people on the planet according to Forbes magazine''s annual survey of the billionaire club.<br /><br />Commentators said the Asian Rich List was so top heavy with the 13-billion-pound worth Mittal, there seemed hardly any room for so-called ''minnow millionaires'' of the British Indian and Pakistani community.This despite the 300-name Richie Rich league table listing a whopping 288 as self-made millionaires.<br /><br />The Asian Rich List made a rapid-fire PR adjustment just hours after Mittal''s name was broadcast across the globe as one of the world''s big billionaire trio. Its PR handlers said the List, published by media tycoon Avtaar Lit, was delaying by a week its launch originally scheduled for Wednesday (March 16).<br /><br />"Wednesday is UK budget day and we did not want the launch to clash with that," said a source, in a frank admission the Asian Rich List badly needed the oxygen of publicity in order to be viable at all. The sense of déjà vu about the List is seen to be exacerbated by its tired chronicling of Forbes''s already-detailed rundown of the UK''s two Asian billionaires – Mittal, followed by the Hinduja brothers who are worth two-billion pounds.<br /><br />Anil Agarwal, whose London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta mining company, makes him a dollar-billionaire, is still listed as £ 485 million pounds short of the magic league of sterling billionaires. The List''s compiler, Philip Beresford, who originally started The Sunday Times''s survey of Britain''s richest, said his Asian wealth league table illustrated the community''s remarkable success. "The Asian community has done very well this year. It''s extremely industrious and extraordinarily vibrant and the hunger in this community knows no bounds," said Beresford.<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" justify=""><br />The List stresses an important point, namely that the Asian community''s wealth-creation far outweighs its measley numerical strength. One in every five businesses in the British capital are owned by Asians and the community now has a yearly disposable income of approximately £ 32 billion.<br /><br />But even though The List is dominated by billionaires far beyond the stratosphere of the garden variety of British Asian millionaires, it contains useful indicators about the rise and rise of Asian money. It charts the continuing growth of traditional British Asian entrepreneurial ventures, such as cash-and-carry businesses, property dealing and the pharmaceutical sector. Not counting Mittal, whose fortune multiplied nearly four-fold over the past 12 months, one of the List''s highest climbers – in mere millionaire terms – is 65-year-old Dr Kartar Lalvani.<br /><br />Lalvani, worth 60-million-pounds, owns Vitabiotics and has surged from 77th last year to 40th place.<br /><br />Lord Swaraj Paul is listed at £ 270 million. Author Salman Rushdie has £ 8 million and film director Gurinder Chadha is three million pounds short of that.</div> </div>