Lakshmi Mittal

Early life

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on 15 June 1950, in Sadulpur, Rajasthan to a Marwari family. He studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya, Calcutta from 1957 to 1964. He graduated from St. Xavier's College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, with a B.Com degree in the first class. Lakshmi Niwas' father, Mohanlal Mittal, ran a steel business, Nippon Denro Ispat.

In 2003, the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Usha Mittal Foundation and the Government of Rajasthan partnered together to establish a university, the LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) in Jaipur as an autonomous non-profit organisation. In 2009, the Foundation along with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan founded the Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management in New Delhi. SNDT Women's University renamed the Institute of Technology for Women (ITW) as Usha Mittal Institute of Technology after a large donation from the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal Foundation. He completed his primary and secondary school from Nopany High, formerly known as Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya.

The fortune

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2016, Mittal and his family had an estimated personal net worth of £7.12 billion, a decrease of $2.08 billion on the previous year. Meanwhile, in 2016 Forbes magazine's annual billionaires list assessed estimated Mittal's wealth in 2016 at as the 135th-wealthiest billionaire with a net worth of US$8.4 billion. Mittal's net worth peaked in 2008, assessed by The Sunday Times at £27.70 billion, and by Forbes at US$45.0 billion, and rated as the fourth-wealthiest individual in the world. As of 2022, he was ranked as the 15th richest man in India by Forbes with a net-worth of US$17.8 billion. According to Forbes, Lakshmi Mittal’s net worth is currently estimated at US$16.4 billion as of 2024. He holds the position of the 113th richest individual globally and ranks as the 13th wealthiest person in India. In October 2024, Mittal was ranked 15th on Forbes' list of India’s 100 richest tycoons, with a net worth of $16.7 billion.

Personal life

Mittal is married to Usha Dalmia. They have a son Aditya Mittal and a daughter, Vanisha Mittal. Lakshmi Mittal has two brothers, Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, and a sister, Seema Lohia, who married Indonesian businessman, Sri Prakash Lohia. His residence at 18–19 Kensington Palace Gardens—which was purchased from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for £67 million (US$128 million)—made it the world's most expensive house at the time. The house 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 lacto-vegetarian. Mittal bought No. 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Gardens, formerly the Philippines Embassy, for £70 million in 2008 for his daughter Vanisha Mittal, who is married to Amit Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist. Mittal threw a lavish "vegetarian reception" for Vanisha in the Palace of Versailles, France. In 2005, he also bought a colonial bungalow for $30 million at No. 22, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi, one of the most exclusive streets in India, occupied by embassies and billionaires, and rebuilt it as a house. In 2025, Mittal was reported to be preparing to leave the United Kingdom after nearly three decades of residence, following the UK government’s decision to abolish the non-domiciled ("non-dom") tax status. In November 2025, The Sunday Times newspaper reported that Mittal had paid about $200 million (£152.7 million) for a baroque mansion at Emirates Hills' Dubai. The paper also confirmed that 'he is resident in Switzerland for tax and is to spend much of his future in Dubai.'

Career

In 1976, because of the curb of steel production by the Indian government, the 26-year-old Mittal opened his first steel factory PT Ispat Indo in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. In 1989, Mittal purchased the state-owned steel works in Trinidad and Tobago, which were operating at an enormous loss. He turned them into profitable ventures in a year. Until the 1990s, the family's main assets in India were a cold-rolling mill for sheet steel in Nagpur and an alloy steel plant near Pune. Today, the family business, including a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is run by his younger brothers Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, but Lakshmi has no connection with it. In 1995, Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based in Cork, Ireland, from the government for a nominal fee of IR£1. Only six years later in 2001 it was closed, leaving over 400 people redundant. Subsequent environmental issues at the site have been a cause for criticism. The Irish government sought a High Court judgement that Mittal's company should contribute to the cost of the clean-up of Cork Harbour, but failed. The clean up was expected to cost €70 million. Before December 2001, Mittal had acquired assets which he renamed Ispat Mexicana and his Kazakhstani operation Ispat Karmet. That month, he renamed Sidex Galati to Ispat Sidex, which he had acquired in November 2001. In October 2003, the LNM Group succeeded in concluding the $155 million transaction to pry loose the Romanian government from the control of steel assets Siderurgica Hunedoara and Petrotub Roman, the day after it took over the PHS Steel Group, which included Huta Sendzimira, Huta Katowice, Huta Florian, and Huta Cedler from the Polish government. Petrotub Roman was renamed Ispat Tepro in the sequel. Mittal successfully employed Marek Dochnal's consultancy to influence Polish officials in the 2003 privatisation of PHS steel group, which was then Poland's largest. Dochnal was later arrested for bribing Polish officials on behalf of Russian agents in a separate affair. Employees of Mittal have accused him of allowing "slave labour" conditions after multiple fatalities in his mines. For example, during December 2004, 23 miners died in explosions in his mines in Kazakhstan caused by faulty gas detectors. In 2006–07, Mittal succeeded in a hostile takeover bid for Arcelor, which he renamed Arcelor Mittal. In so doing, he obtained control of, amongst others, the Usinor steel assets of France, the Arbed steel assets of Luxembourg, and the Aceralia steel assets of Spain.