19.Shashi and Ravi Ruia

Shashi and Ravi Ruia

Shashi and Ravi Ruia are the Indian Billionaires. They are the founders of the Essar Group, the multinational conglomerate in Steel, Power, Energy, Communications and Construction Business.

The head quarter of Essar Group is in Mumbai. They have founded Essar Group in 1969 and today it has $ 15 Billion of Annual Revenue (2009).

Both of them are the India’s Top 10 Richest persons having net worth of around US $ 6-8 Billion. They are also the Forbes Billionaires.

Essar Steel is India’s largest exporter of Flat Steel. And the Company is world’s one of the largest company of steel. Essar Steel is the largest steel producer in western India, with a capacity of 10 MTPA at Hazira, Gujarat. The Essar Steel complex at Hazira in Gujarat,India has a complete infrastructure setup, including a captive port, lime plant and oxygen plant. The company is building a 1.5 MTPA plate mill and a 0.6 MTPA pipe mill in Hazira.

Essar Oil is a fully integrated oil & gas company of international scale with strong presence across the hydrocarbon value chain from exploration & production to oil retail.It has a portfolio of onshore and offshore oil & gas blocks worldwide, with about 70,000 km2 available for exploration

History of Essar Group and Shashi & Ravi Ruia -

Shashi and Ravi Ruia are the born entrepreneurs. They have founded Essar group in 1969 and after that migrated from Rajasthan to Mumbai.

Ruia is a Marwari Family. And the Business is in their blood. The History of Essar Group is not new. Their Family business was since 1800.

In 1969, after the death of their father, Nand Kishore Ruia, both the brothers Shashi & Ruia have took over the group and started expanding. And within just 3 decades they have transformed a small family business into a multinational diversified corporation in the areas of Energy, Steel, Power, Communications and Construction.

Today Essar Group is the fourth largest house in India according to Asset wise.

Ravi is the Chairman of the Essar Group. Extended steel business into North America with acquisitions of Minnesota Steel and Canada's Algoma Steel. Wedding bash for Ravi's daughter Smiti drew 4,000 guests, including family friend Richard Branson.

Recently in April 2010, Ruia brothers have made literally billions of dollars by floating Essar Energy on London Stock Exchange.

Ruia Brothers consider 13 to be their lucky number and will not fly together. Essar Energy is just part of the Ruia's huge steel-to-retail conglomerate and the brothers are only floating 25% of the firm.

For years the brothers shared an office, sitting at "opposite ends of a long room [decorated] with mahogany wall panelling and paintings", and they always get together when India plays cricket.

Business runs in the Ruias' veins, says the FT. They are members of the Marwari community from Rajasthan  –  renowned for its commercial acumen and drive. The bones of their empire was a shipping and exports business founded by their father, Nand Kishore Ruia, in 1956. He named it Essar after the first letters of his sons' names – S and R. The brothers moved into port and deep-sea pipeline construction. Their big break came in 1990 when they took advantage of India's liberalising economy to move into sponge iron, "an unglamorous but essential raw material for steel".

In 2000, they struck a deal with Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing to form Hutchison Essar. When Li Ka-shing sold out to Vodafone in 2007, the value of the Ruias' 33% stake soared. The combined company is currently India's third-largest operator.