Ambani loses top spot as India's wealthiest to Shanghvi

Dilip Shanghvi, who started an Indian pharmaceutical company more than three decades ago selling a single drug, has overtaken oil refining tycoon Mukesh Ambani to become India's richest person.

Shanghvi is founder and managing director of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, India's biggest drugmaker by market value. He had a net worth of $21.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ambani, who's been the country's wealthiest since the inception of the Bloomberg index in March 2012, had a fortune of $21.5 billion as of the end of the trading day on Wednesday.

Shanghvi started his company after graduating from the University of Calcutta in 1982, and the firm emerged as a pharmaceutical giant through investments in research for new drugs and a string of acquisitions. The stock surged 6.7 percent to a record 1,006.30 rupees ($16.17) at the close in Mumbai on Wednesday, while Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd, which runs the world's biggest refining complex, lost 1.4 percent.