homemarket Newsstocks NewsRavi Jaipuria of Varun Beverages is now richer than India's richest banker: CNBC TV18 Edge
Ravi Jaipuria of Varun Beverages is now richer than India's richest banker: CNBC-TV18 Edge
Jaipuria, the promoter of bottling and beverage company Varun Beverages and QSR player Devyani International, companies named after his children, ranks 14th in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a $14.5 billion net worth.
With shares of Varun Beverages gaining 18x from its IPO back in 2016, Ravi Kant Jaipuria – the founder and chairman of RJ Corp – has seen his net worth surge by $6 billion in 2023. In the process, India's "Cola King" has overtaken the country's richest banker - Uday Kotak, in terms of net worth.
Jaipuria, the promoter of bottling and beverage company Varun Beverages and QSR player Devyani International, companies named after his children, ranks 14th in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a $14.5 billion net worth. 85% or $12.8 billion of that comes solely from Varun Beverages.
In comparison, the net worth of Uday Kotak, founder & former CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, increased by $414 million since January to $14.1 billion.
| Billionaire | Net worth | |
| 1 | Mukesh Ambani | $94.37 Billion |
| 2 | Gautam Adani | $81.13 Billion |
| 3 | Shapoor Pallonji Mistry | $34.61 Billion |
| 4 | Shiv Nadar | $33.32 Billion |
| 5 | Azim Premji | $24.40 Billion |
| 6 | Savitri Devi Jindal | $23.90 Billion |
| 7 | Lakshmi Mittal | $20.37 Billion |
| 8 | Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi | $20.24 Billion |
| 9 | Radhakishan Damani | $18.99 Billion |
| 10 | Kumar Birla | $17.37 Billion |
| 11 | Cyrus S Poonawalla | $17.29 Billion |
| 12 | KP Singh | $14.93 Billion |
| 13 | Sunil Mittal | 14.87 Billion |
| 14 | Ravi Jaipuria | $14.45 Billion |
| 15 | Uday Kotak | $14.11 Billion |
Source: Bloomberg
On Tuesday, Varun Beverages announced its entry into the South African market through the acquisition of a 100% stake in Bevco for ₹1,320 crore. BevCo is PepsiCo's bottling partner in South Africa and also has franchise rights for the Lesotho and Eswatini regions, along with distribution rights for Namibia and Botswana.
The street cheered the acquisition with the stock having gained 17% over the last four trading sessions and has also hit a record high. In an interaction with CNBC-TV18 on Thursday, Jaipuria said that the latest acquisition will bring large volume addition to the company's portfolio along with an expansion in margins.
"South Africa business should add ₹200-250 crore to the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA)," Jaipuria said.
Additionally, the Gurugram-based company also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jharkhand government on Tuesday to set up a manufacturing plant in the state by spending ₹450 crore.
While shares of Varun Beverages have surged as much as 95% this year, those of Kotak Mahindra Bank has returned less than 2%. The latter has also underperformed the banking stocks gauge - the Nifty Bank, which is up 11.3% so far in 2023.
Shares of Devyani International, another entity promoted by Jaipuria have gained close to 6% this year, after 10% returns in 2022. The company recently announced its foray into the Thailand QSR market with the acquisition of 274 KFC outlets there.
(Edited by : Hormaz Fatakia)
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