(Economist) Laksmi Mittal - the man who get richer for 36.000 USD by a second is coming closer to Serbia

Money is his name: Lakšmi is the Goddess of wealth in the Hindu religion. Lakšmi Mital (Lakshmi Niwas Mittal), the offspring of a trade clan from the desert country Rajasthan in India, has been the fifth richest man in the world and the richest man in Asia and Europe, according to the Forbes list of last year. This 56year old, whose wealth is estimated on 23.5 billion USD is the head of the largest steel company in the world – Mittal Steel. A few weeks ago he bought the rival company Arselor from Luxemburg for 25.8 billion EUR. The Arselor is the second biggest steel mill in the world, and a jewel in the EU economy. .

The regular people haven’t heard about Mital until 2005 when he became “a star” on the Forbes list, During the year 2004 he enlarged his wealth for 18.8 billion USD. He skipped 59 places on the top list of rich people, and found himself on the third place on the Forbes list; right behind the Americans Bill Gates and Warren Baffet. Last year Mital became the fifth because the Mexican mogul in the telecommunication sector Carlos Slim Helu and the founder of “Ikea” Ingvar Kamprad became third and fourth.

A nice life

The steel price increase, and it’s great consumption in China gave the result that Mitals wealth grew for 36.000 USD by the second. Then he, because of the great profit of the company in wich Mital owns 88% of stocks, collected the record dividend of about 140 million in British pounds (about 260 million USD).

“Laku”, as he is being called, therefore lives a nice life and isn’t immune to the luxury. This India citizen, who makes his homeland very proud, lives in Great Britain, Europe and Russia. Allegedly he has houses in New Delhi, Indonesia and on Trinidad too.

With his wife Uša, he owns two residences in London. One is in Hampstead on the northwest and the other is a 50 room mansion in Kensington, on the north of the British capital. According to the official record, in the year 2004 he payed 57 million pounds for it; according to the press, he payed it 13 millions more – that would be the largest price for a private house ever. In those houses, Mital is a neighbor to a sheik and to stars in the entertainment business. In the year 1997, Laku sold a house in Hong Kong for 62.7 million pounds. According to the Guinness record book, that was the most expensive house in the world – until the latest shopping from Mital. The man buys expensive, but he sells expensive too.

Hampstead is known for hundreds of years by it’s specific environment which seems to suite very well to the intellectuals and writers. The writers Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot and Agatha Christie and the founder of modern psychology Sigmund Freud lived there. A resident of Hampstead was the actor Dirk Bogard too. Today, the residents are: John La Care, the Island singer Bjork, her British colleague Boy George, the former king of Greece Konstantin II, the actors Rex Harrison, Jeremy Irons and Elisabeth Taylor. The stylish French soccer player Thierry Henry recently moved in to Hampstead too. Henry is playing for the Londoner Arsenal and lives in one of the most wanted areas in Hampstead in a house made out of glass and steel. The house is estimated on 5.6 million pounds and it has 650 square foot in 6 bedrooms. The architect was Richard McOmarc, the former president of the Royal institute of British architects.

A nice neighborhood

The second London mansion of Milat, wit 12 bedrooms in the fashionable Kensington palace gardens belonged to the owner of Formula 1, Bernie Ekleston until 2003. During the 90’s the mansion was renewed by an arts collector, one of the rich Asian Jew Naser David Kalili. In that house, built in neo-pladian style lived Paul Reuter too. Paul Reuter is the grounder of the news agency Reuters. The floors and poles are built out of the same marbel that was used for the famous Taj Mahal. The mansion has Turkish bathrooms, a dancing hall, a gallery made out of oak tree… In the ground floor is a poll decorated with diamonds. The garage has space for 20 cars, and security is the circular television system (CCTV) with 65 cameras.

Kensington palace gardens, known as KPG by it’s residents was never a street for poor people. The former vegetable gardens from the Kensington palace were sold by the royal family in the 1840s for construction of living spaces. Already in 1854 all the houses were finished and ready for the people to move in. KPG was always a home for newlyric, traders and financial magnats, along with the properties of dukes and lords. Then came the 1970s, and the prices went down. It became a street of foreign embassies: Russia, Nepal, Kuwait, Saudi Arabic, Slovakia, the Chez republic…

In the meantime, private owners began returning to the KPG. They started living in huge expensive summerhouses from the earlier Victorian time. Mitals nearest megarich neighbor is Len Blatavnik, the Russian- American mogul moved to the street in 2005. Blatavnik is one of the most mysterious rich Russians and no one outside of his close circle doesn’t know the exact size of his wealth. According to his stocks in Russian oil companies which are dealing with aluminum production, he must have billions. He went from Russia to the US in 1978. He didn’t invest in his homeland until 1990, when he returned from New York with several million USD on his bank accounts and a degree from the Harvard business school.

Several rich British people live in KPG too. There is John Hant, the founder of the real estate agency chain Foxtons. Last November, Hant bought a house in KPG for 14 million pounds.

Whose is longer

In the past few weeks the German press wrote about a super – yacht from the Hamburg shipyard Blum&Vos that should find it’s place in the luxurious riding camp of Lakšm Mital. The shipyard Blum&Vos is building yachts only for the richest people in the world, and this, 94m long, yacht should cost about 160 million EUR.

The shipyard, which is a part of a construction group Tisen Krup became an order for “The project 971” because they guarantee a complete privacy. The ship should be ready by spring 2009 after a construction in a covered mole, far from curious eyes. The interior of the yacht will be decorated by the London design company Michael Litch wich specializes in detail like bars made out of glass and so on. The ship will have a private helicopter and a escalator which can take it under the main deck. All this doesn’t mean that Mital will be pleased. Because…

Super – yachts are a sign of power. They are often built in secret so that the proud owner can present it personally. Those ships, which are called “Mega-yachts” cant ship into most of the harbors, so they have to anchor in the open see, where they can enjoy their privacy, far from the public eye. The Russian mogul Roman Abramovič has had great publicity during the last soccer World cup in Germany. He anchored his 115m long yacht “Pelorus” in the northgerman harbor Libeck and flew with his private helicopter to every game. Abramovič, who has the eleventh position on the Forbes list thanks to his wealth of 18.2 billion USD, went to Hamburg during his visit to Germany and orderd another yacht which should be 150m long.; but, the trouble started when he found out that Paul Alen, one of the Microsoft founders (sixth on the Forbes list with an estimated wealt of 22 billion USD), is planning to make his yacht “Octopus” of 27m (the second largest boat in the world) longer for 13 m, he changed his order. His new yacht sould be 160m long. This is the exact length of the new ship the heir to the throne of Dubai, Sheik Mohamed bin Rashid al-Maktum, has. According to the specialized New York magazine “Power & Motoryacht”, the largest private yacht is “The rising sun” from 2004 which belongs to Larry Alison from the American software company “Oracle”. Elison is on the 15th place of the Forbes list, with an estimated wealth of 16 billion USD.

“The rising sun” is 140m long, has 5 floors, 82 rooms, a glass bottom for watching the underwater life plus thre 12m long boats – one for the guests, one for the crew and one for the vehicle. Every main room is 5m high and has a balcony with a sea sight. Then there are huge crystal chandeliers, onix bathrooms, Jacuzzi tubs made out of alabaster, a bar made out of oak tree…

Mital should have visited “The rising sun” 3 times during last year. Alison has enough of his toy, according to the stories, but the ship isn’t open for sale yet. Many people guess that Milton will find a way to be one of the record holders in the length of his yacht.