Net Worth: $31.1 billion (up from $28.7 billion)
Age: 60
Fortune: Inherited and growing
Source: Steel, ArcelorMittal ADS
Country of Citizenship: India
Residence: London, United Kingdom
Marital Status: Married, two children
Education: BA/BS, St Xavier’s College Calcutta
Net profits at his ArcelorMittal, world’s largest steel-maker, are up 18-fold to $2.9 billion in 2010 due to recovery in steel demand and higher margins. Group spun off its stainless steel unit into Aperam, a new listed company, and also acquired Canadian miner Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation. It has funded a 377-foot sculpture called ArcelorMittal Orbit in London’s Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics. Europe’s richest resident, he bought Alderbrook Park, a 340-acre country estate outside London, where he plans to build an eco-friendly country mansion for a reported $40 million. Daughter Vanisha acquired stake in Roc Capital Management, a New York hedge fund. Daughter-in-law Megha owns German fashion house Escada.
Steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal is going green. He's already hard at work on the most expensive estate in Scotland but he's also turning a country estate in southeastern England into a new green palace. The home, Alderbrook Park was built as a country estate during the 19th century but that home was partially demolished and replaced with a less attractive one in the 1950s.
Now Mittal, one of the world's ten richest men, plans to create the ultimate green estate. Plans including using outdoor temperature differences to create natural air conditioning and an ambitious idea to grow enough wood to feed large boilers to provide heating and hot water. Workers at the home will cut down 110 tons of wood a year for the boilers but plant trees to replace them. Solar panels on the roofs of two outbuildings will also provide electricity. Steel tubes will draw cool air from the estate's wooded areas in the summer and in the winter, solar-heated air will be drawn down from the roofs to add additional warmth.
