Lakshmi Niwas Mittal pronunciation ; born 2 September 1950) is an Indian steel magnate.
He is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaking company.
Mittal owns 38% of ArcelorMittal and holds a 34% stake in the Queens Park Rangers F.C.
football team. In 2007, Mittal was the richest man of Asian
descent in the United Kingdom. Despite being the eighth wealthiest man in Britain in 2002,
he does not hold British citizenship. He was ranked the sixth richest person in the world
by Forbes in 2011, but dropped to 21st place in 2012, due to having lost $10.4 billion
the previous year. In spite of the drop, Forbes estimated that he still had a personal wealth
of US$16 billion in October 2013. He is also the 47th "most powerful person" of the 70
individuals named in Forbes' "Most Powerful People" list for 2012. His daughter Vanisha
Mittal's wedding was the second most expensive in recorded history.
Mittal has been a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008, and is also member
of the board of directors of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. He sits
on the World Steel Association's executive committee, and is a member of the Indian Prime
Minister’s Global Advisory Council, the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan,
the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council, and the Presidential International
Advisory Board of Mozambique. He also sits on the advisory board of Northwestern University's
Kellogg School of Management in the United States and is a member of the board of trustees
of the Cleveland Clinic. In 2006 The Sunday Times named him "Business
Person of 2006", the Financial Times named him "Person of the Year", and Time magazine
named him "International Newsmaker of the Year 2006". In 2007, Time magazine included
him in their "100 most influential persons in the world".
Early life and career Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born into an Indian
Hindu Rajasthani Agarwal business family in Rajgarh tehsil of Churu district in Rajasthan,
India. His family moved from Sadulpur, Rajasthan to Calcutta in West Bengal. Mittal has three
siblings—Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal and a sister Seema Lohia. He studied at Shri
Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya from 1957 to 1964. He graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta,
with a B.Com degree from the University of Calcutta. His father, Mohan Lal Mittal, ran
a steel business, Nippon Denro Ispat. In 1976, due to the curb of steel production by Indian
government, the 26 year old Mittal opened his first steel factory PT Ispat Indo in Sidoarjo,
East Java, Indonesia. Until the 1990s, the family's main assets in India were a cold-rolling
mill for sheet steels in Nagpur and an alloy steels plant near Pune. Today, the family
business, including a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is run by Pramod and Vinod,
but Lakshmi has no connection with it. Philanthropy
Sports After witnessing India win only one medal,
bronze, in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and one medal, silver, at the 2004 Summer Olympics,
Mittal decided to set up Mittal Champions Trust with $9 million to support 10 Indian
athletes with world-beating potential. In 2008, Mittal awarded Abhinav Bindra with Rs.
1.5 Crore, for getting India its first individual Olympic gold medal in shooting. Arcelor Mittal
Also financed the construction of ArcelorMittal Orbit for 2012 Summer Olympics.
For Comic Relief he matched the money raised on the celebrity special BBC programme, The
Apprentice. Education
In 2003, the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal and Usha Mittal Foundation and the Government of Rajasthan
partnered together to establish a university, the LNM Institute of Information Technology
in Jaipur as an autonomous non-profit organization. In 2009, the Foundation along with Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan founded the Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management in New Delhi.
SNDT Women's University renamed the Institute of Technology for Women as Usha Mittal Institute
of Technology after a large donation from the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal Foundation.
Medical In 2008 the Mittals made a donation of £15
million to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the largest private contribution the
hospital had ever received. The donation was used to help fund their new facility, the
Mittal Children's Medical Centre. Criticism and allegations
PHS Mittal successfully employed Marek Dochnal's
consultancy to influence Polish officials in the privatization of PHS steel group, which
was Poland's largest. Dochnal was later arrested for bribing Polish officials on behalf of
Russian agents in a separate affair. In 2007, the Polish government said it wanted
to renegotiate the 2004 sale to Arcelor Mittal. Slave-labour allegations and questionable
safety records Employees of Mittal have accused him of "slave
labour" conditions after multiple fatalities in his mines. During December 2004, twenty-three
miners died in explosions in his mines in Kazakhstan caused by faulty gas detectors.
The Mittal Affair: "Cash for Influence" In 2002 Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price obtained
a letter written by Tony Blair to the Romanian Government in support of Mittal's LNM steel
company, which was in the process of bidding to buy Romania's state-owned steel industry.
This revelation caused controversy, because Mittal had given £125,000 to the British
Labour Party the previous year. Although Blair defended his letter as simply "celebrating
the success" of a British company, he was criticised because LNM was registered in the
Dutch Antilles and employed less than 1% of its workforce in the UK. LNM was a "major
global competitor of Britain's own struggling steel industry".
Blair's letter hinted that the privatisation of the firm and sale to Mittal might help
smooth the way for Romania's entry into the European Union. It also had a passage, removed
just prior to Blair's signing of it, describing Mittal as "a friend".
Queens Park Rangers Mittal had emerged as a leading contender
to buy and sell Barclays Premiership clubs Wigan and Everton. However, on 20 December
2007 it was announced that the Mittal family had purchased a 20 percent shareholding in
Queens Park Rangers football club joining Flavio Briatore and Mittal's friend Bernie
Ecclestone. As part of the investment Mittal's son-in-law, Amit Bhatia, took a place on the
board of directors. The combined investment in the struggling club sparked suggestions
that Mittal might be looking to join the growing ranks of wealthy individuals investing heavily
in English football and emulating similar benefactors such as Roman Abramovich.
On 19 February 2010, Briatore resigned as QPR chairman, and sold further shares in the
club to Ecclestone, making Ecclestone the single largest shareholder.
Environmental damage Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based
in Cork, Ireland, from the government for a nominal fee of £1 million. Three years
later, in 2001, it was closed, leaving 400 people redundant. Subsequent environmental
issues at the site have been a cause for criticism. The government tried to sue in the High Court
to have him pay for the clean-up of Cork Harbour but failed. The clean up was expected to cost
€70 million. Personal life
His residence at 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens—which was purchased from Formula One boss Bernie
Ecclestone in 2004 for £57 million—made it the world's most expensive house at the
time. The house is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj
Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been referred to as the "Taj Mittal". It has
12 bedrooms, an indoor pool, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars. He is a vegetarian.
Mittal bought No. 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Gardens, formerly the Philippines Embassy,
for £70 million in 2008 for his daughter Vanisha Mittal who is married to Amit Bhatia,
a businessman and philanthropist. Being a vegetarian, Mittal threw a lavish "vegetarian
reception" for Vanisha in the Palace of Versailles, France.
Mittal owns three prime properties collectively worth £500 million on "Billionaire's Row"
at Kensington Palace Gardens. In 2005 he also bought a colonial bungalow
for $30 million at No. 22, Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi the most exclusive street in India,
occupied by embassies and millionaires, and rebuilt it as a house.
In December 2013, Mittal's niece got married in a three day celebration that it is reported
brought Barcelona to a standstill and cost up to £50m. An army of 200 butlers, cooks
and secretaries were reportedly flown into Spain from India and Thailand while the 500
guests were made to sign confidentiality agreements. Awards and honours
Bibliography Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey - Cold Steel.
Yogesh Chabria - Invest The Happionaire Way. Navalpreet Rangi-Documentary Film.
See also ArcelorMittal Orbit
ArcelorMittal References
External links Profile at ArcelorMittal
Profile at Forbes Profile at BBC News
Article on Mittal with background on Arcelor takeover bid - Time
Lakshmi Mittal corporate executives Lakshmi Mittal collected news and commentary
at The Guardian Lakshmi Mittal collected news and commentary
at Bloomberg News Lakshmi Mittal collected news and commentary
at The Wall Street Journal Lakshmi Mittal collected news and commentary
at The Economist Lakshmi Mittal collected news and commentary
at The Bloomberg Businessweek Lakshmi Mittal collected news and commentary
at The Times of India Works by or about Lakshmi Mittal in libraries
Lakshmi Mittal at the Notable Names Database BBC - ""Glimpsing a Fairytale Wedding"" - BBC
News Mittal Steel Cleveland Works
Article on Mittal Family purchase of Escada - Bloomberg