30 Amazing Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Lakshmi Mittal

Lakshmi Mittal, the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaking company, though known to have a little media shy, has always had the heads turn with his extravagant expenses like the record £70 million purchase of a 12-bedroom home in London and the $60 million wedding of his daughter in Paris. Here are some little known facts about the Indian steel magnate:

1.  He is often referred to as the Steel Baron of India, owning over 38 percent of the Arcelor Mittal S.A., an Indian multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City.
2.  He is the first Indian to be ranked among the top ten richest persons in the world by Forbes magazine, when he was ranked as the third-richest person in the world in the year 2005.
3.  He has been constantly listed as one among the most powerful individuals and also as one of the most influential persons, by several magazines since 2010.
4.  He sits on the World Steel Association's executive committee, and is also said to be a member of the board of trustees of the Cleveland Clinic.
5.  He is also a part of the Global CEO Council of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, and the European Round Table of Industrialists.
6.  In the year 2005, Mittal was named as the "Person of the Year," by the Financial Times, "Business Person of 2006" by The Sunday Times.
7.  He was named as the "International Newsmaker of the Year 2006" by the Time magazine in 2005, and two years later, he was included in the magazine's list "Time 100."
8.  He has been a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs, the multinational investment bank and financial services, since the year 2008.
9.  He was ranked as the "57th-most powerful person" of the total of 72 individuals named in Forbes' "Most Powerful People" list for the year 2015.
10.  Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on June 15, 1950 in Sadulpur Rajasthan to Mohanlal Mittal. His family moved to Kolkata in the late 1950s, where his father operated a steel mill named Nippon Denro Ispat.
11.  He attended the Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya, Calcutta, before graduating with a B.Com degree in first class from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta.
12.  He has two brothers - Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal and a sister - Seema Lohia. His sister is married to Indonesian businessman, Sri Prakash Lohia, the founder and chairman of Indorama Corporation.
13.  At the age of 26, he opened his first steel factory PT Ispat Indo in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, due to the curb of steel production by the Indian government in the year 1976.
14.  The family business, which includes a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is now under his brothers Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, though he has no connection with it.
15.  He set up Mittal Champions Trust with $9 million to support ten Indian athletes with world-beating potential, after witnessing India win only one bronze medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and one silver medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics.
16.  It was reported that he honored Abhinav Bindra for getting India its first individual Olympic gold medal in shooting in the 2008 Olympics and awarded him Rs. 1.5 Crore.
17.  He and his family made a donation of £15 million to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the largest private contribution the hospital had ever received, in an effort to fund their new facility, the Mittal Children's Medical Centre, in the year 2008.
18.  He, through his company ArcelorMittal, is said to have provided steel for the construction of the ArcelorMittal Orbit for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
19.  Mittal is said to have purchased a 20 percent shareholding in Queens Park Rangers football club, along with Flavio Briatore and his friend Bernie Ecclestone. His son-in-law Amit Bhatia has become one of the board of directors.
20.  He is married to Usha Mittal and has two children - a son named Aditya Mittal and a daughter named Vanisha Mittal.
21.  He and his family currently reside at 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens, which was reportedly purchased from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone for a whopping £67 million (US$128 million), in the year 2004, making it the world's most expensive house at that time.
22.  The said house is often referred to as the "Taj Mittal," as the entire house is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal.
23.  He spent around $78 million for his daughter Vanisha's wedding that took place in the Palace of Versailles, the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte in Paris’s Jardin des Tuileries, with over 1000 guests flown to Paris on 12 jets rented by him.
24.  Three exclusive television channels broadcasted the wedding preparations and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. The guests were accommodated at the Hotel le Grand Intercontinental, where all 600 rooms were booked for the occasion. A team of 28 chefs were asked to prepare over 100 types of dishes.
25.  Four years later, he is said to have bought No. 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Gardens, formerly the Philippines Embassy, for £70 million, for his daughter Vanisha, following her marriage to Amit Bhatia.
26.  His niece Shrishti Mittal got married in a three-day celebration in December 2013, which reportedly brought Barcelona to a standstill and cost up to £50 million, with 500 guests made to sign confidentiality agreements.
27.  He is known to own three prime properties collectively worth £500 million on "Billionaire's Row" at Kensington Palace Gardens, West Central London.
28.  He also reportedly purchased a colonial bungalow for $30 million at No. 22, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi and is said to have rebuilt it as a house in the year 2005. The said bungalow is located in one of the most exclusive streets in India, occupied by embassies and billionaires.
29.  In the late 1990s, Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based in Cork, Ireland, from the government for a nominal fee of £1 million, but had to close it after three years leaving 400 people redundant. The environmental issues at the site have been a very big cause for criticism.
30.  In the year 2018, he oversaw the ArcelorMittal acquisition of Italy's loss-making steel group Ilva. His bid of $5.9 billion for the bankrupt Essar Steel was also accepted by the Essar's creditors.
31.  Lakshmi Mittal Net Worth: $13.6 Billion