Asia’s wealthiest woman is Indian, Savitri Jindal, who owns the conglomerate, Jindal Group, which operates in sectors like metals and power generation and has amassed a fortune of $11.3 billion.
As China’s developers struggle to recover from a mortgage boycott, Savitri Jindal passed Chinese real estate mogul Yang Huiyan to take the top spot in the wealth rankings.
With her Country Garden, China’s largest real estate developer, announcing that it needs to issue equity at a discount, Yang Huiyan’s fortune has more than halved this year to $11 billion, and the slide has accelerated this week. As a result, the stock has dropped to its lowest level since 2016.
Tinsukia, Assam, is where Jindal was born. She married the founder of the Jindal company, Om Prakash Jindal in the 1970s. Shortly after her husband, the company’s founder died in a helicopter accident in 2005, she was appointed chairwoman of the Jindal Group. The business works in cement, energy, and infrastructure as well as producing steel.
Jindal, 72, is the 10th richest individual in India’s population of 1.4 billion and the richest woman in the country.
In recent years, Jindal’s net worth has fluctuated significantly. After the Covid-19 pandemic caused a drop in value to $3.2 billion in April 2020, it rose to $15.6 billion in April 2022 as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Indian-born billionaire is active in politics in addition to business. She belongs to the political party known as the Indian National Congress. She served as a minister in the Haryana government and represented the Hisar district in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha. She was defeated in the Haryana assembly elections held in 2014 for the seat.