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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 92 Diane Hendricks|# 94 David Tepper ➡

# 93 Cyrus Poonawalla 

$20.8B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 5/10/2024
$62.7M (0.30%)

# 93 Cyrus Poonawalla 

$20.8B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 5/10/2024
$62.7M (0.30%)
OccupationFounder and Chair, Poonawalla Group
Source of WealthVaccines
Age83
ResidencePune, India
Marital StatusWidowed
Children1
EducationBS, Pune University; Doctorate, Pune University
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$4.38B
Cyrus Poonawalla
Cyrus Poonawalla
India
Net worth: $20.8B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Early Life and Education

Cyrus Poonawalla was born into a family deeply connected to India's horse racing circuit and owned Poonawalla Stud Farms.
By the age of 20, he realized the limited future of horse racing in socialist India and experimented with car manufacturing, creating a $120 prototype sports car modeled on the D-type Jaguar.
A chance conversation at the family farm led him into the field of vaccines when he saw an opportunity to produce cheaper vaccines by extracting serum from retired horses.

Business Philosophy and Serum Institute

In 1966, Dr. Poonawalla founded the Serum Institute of India (SII) with a vision to make life-saving drugs and vaccines for the masses.
SII introduced its first therapeutic anti-tetanus serum within two years and by 1974, launched the DTP vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.
In 1989, the production of Measles Vaccine M-Vac began, making SII the country's largest vaccine manufacturer within a year.
Accredited by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1994, SII started exporting vaccines globally, supplying to U.N. Agencies such as UNICEF and PAHO.
Dr. Poonawalla's commitment to 'Health for All with affordable Vaccines' has propelled SII to become the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, producing over 1.5 billion doses annually.

Horse Racing and Industry Involvement

Dr. Poonawalla maintains strong ties with India's horse racing and breeding industry through Poonawalla Stud Farms, started by his late father.
He holds various esteemed positions in the horseracing field, including Chairman of Turf Authorities of India and Vice Chairman of the Asian Racing Federation.
Having served on multiple horseracing committees, he was the sole representative of India at the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA).

Personal Life and Achievements

Educated at Bishops School, Poona, Dr. Poonawalla graduated from Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce in 1966 and earned a Ph.D. from Pune University in 1988 for his thesis on improved technology in manufacturing specific anti-toxins.
Married to the late Mrs. Villoo Poonawalla, he has a son named Adar, who is the CEO and executive director at the Serum Institute, leading its expansion into new drugs and markets.
Apart from his business ventures, Dr. Poonawalla has a passion for collecting cars and owns a fascinating collection of sports cars and custom-built limousines.

How long would it take you to become as rich as Cyrus Poonawalla?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.01% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach Cyrus Poonawalla's net worth of $20.8B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 40.45% compared to 10.08% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

Enter data in all but one field below, then calculate the missing value

Cyrus Poonawalla is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For Cyrus Poonawalla, Vaccines is the primary source. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey