With her nine children, Savitri Jindal is India's wealthiest woman and controls O.P. Jindal Group, a sprawling conglomerate set up by her late husband, Om Prakash Jindal. The New Delhi-based company is involved in steel production, mining, power generation, industrial gases and port facilities.
The majority of Jindal's fortune is derived from her family's O.P. Jindal Group, a conglomerate set up by her late husband, Om Prakash Jindal. The New Delhi-based group is closely held and has stakes in publicly traded investment company JSW Holdings, and businesses Jindal Steel & Power, JSW Steel, JSW Energy, Jindal Saw, Jindal Stainless and JSW Infrastructure.
Om Prakash allocated one-fifth of the family's shareholding in each company to each of his four sons, and kept the remaining 20%. Savitri now controls her late husband's stake. Shares held by the sons and other family members are credited to her, reflecting her status as matriarch.
The sons each run different pieces of the conglomerate. When Savitri dies, her share in each company will be transferred to the respective son in charge.
O.P. Jindal Group also owns 83% of JSW Infrastructure, a builder of ports, shipyards and ship repair facilities. The company went public in October 2023.
Pledged shares are excluded from the calculation.
The family also owns closely held JSW Cement, which is valued based on the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda and price-to-earnings multiples of three publicly traded peer companies: Shree Cement, Ultratech Cement and ACC Ltd.
The value of her cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, market performance, insider transactions and taxes.
The former housewife took over as chairwoman of the O.P. Jindal Group after her husband, Om Prakash Jindal, died in a helicopter crash in 2005. He had founded the O.P. Jindal Group in 1952 and also served as power minister in India's state of Haryana. The company has interests in steel, mining and power.
Savitri Jindal's father arranged for her to be married to Om Prakash when she was 15 years old, after Vidya Devi -- his first wife and Savitri's sister -- died. O.P., who was 20 years older than Savitri, had six children from his first marriage, the eldest being almost as old as Savitri. O.P. and Savitri had three children of their own.
The sons -- Prithvi, Sajjan, Ratan and Naveen -- now manage the family businesses. They took over the business before their father died in 2005 and while they've led the conglomerate have listed power producer JSW Energy on the National Stock Exchange of India and expanded overseas, buying iron ore mines in Chile and coal mines in Mozambique. Her youngest child, Naveen, runs New Delhi-based steelmaker Jindal Steel & Power, the family's biggest company by market value.
The matriarch also inherited her husband's political constituency and is a legislator in the north Indian state of Haryana. She continues to pursue Jindal's social welfare agenda, promoting education, health care and the environment.
The family compound in New Delhi, where the sons and their families live, is comprised of four independent bungalows linked by a common kitchen.