Anil Agarwal

Scrap trading became an industrial metals business

Agarwal began in Mumbai trading scrap metal rather than inheriting a large mining company. Forbes describes an early business collecting and reselling metal before he moved into manufacturing, creating the first step from commodity trading toward an owned industrial operation. ^[1][2]

He then bought into a cable manufacturer and financed equipment that let the business produce more of its own inputs. That move toward manufacturing and backward integration reduced dependence on trading margins and created an operating base that could support larger metals investments. ^[2]

The business that became Sterlite expanded through public offerings, smelting capacity and acquisitions across copper, aluminum and mining. Those transactions transformed a small trading operation into a diversified natural-resources group whose equity value became the central asset behind Agarwal's wealth. ^[1][2]

Control of Vedanta kept the founder tied to the upside

Agarwal later built Vedanta Resources into an international mining and metals group. Forbes notes that he took Vedanta Resources private in 2018, paying more than $1 billion for the roughly one-third of the company he did not already own, increasing the concentration of founder control. ^[1]

Vedanta's mines, revenue and enterprise value should not be read as Agarwal's personal balance sheet. His fortune reflects the ownership interests he accumulated while building and consolidating the group, making decades of founder equity creation the clearest link between the original scrap business and billionaire wealth. ^[1][2]