Lakshmi Mittal is a billionaire who resides in Britain and is one of the world’s top richest men. He comes from Rajasthan district in India where he was born in 1950.He attended St, Xavier’s college where in 1969 he was awarded a Bachelor of commerce degree in business and accounting options. He lived with his extended family but later his family moved to Calcutta where his father was doing business (Sharada and Nagendra 101).
The career of Mittal began in1976, in Calcutta India where he joined in the family’s steelmaking business. His father got into a partnership in a steel firm which became a huge success. The family later began its own steel industry and Mittal decided to expand it internationally. He began his mission in Indonesia where he bought and renovated a run-down plant.
He turned the company into a success by reducing production and management costs, closing down units that were not efficient and sourcing outside markets for the products. His expansion strategy would later take him to Mexico, Poland, Romania, Algeria and the Soviet Union (Sharada and Nagendra 101).
Sometime latter Mittal took ownership of the international branch of the business and set out on his own in 1994, probably due to some family differences. He named his company Mittal Steel. It is currently the world’s biggest steel maker, based in fourteen countries and shipping more than 40 million tons of steel. Lakshmi is one of the most famous and experienced people in the steel and steel related fields.
Among his many achievements is the introduction of mini-mills into the industry and the processing of Iron that is directly reduced (DRI) as a substitute for scrap metal. Apart from steel production, Mittal Steel also manufactures long carbon and unfinished steel, wires, pipes, car body parts and other steel products (Sharada and Nagendra, p 101).
Mittal Steel is the most profitable steel company in the world with over 22 billion dollars estimated profits in 2004. In the same year Lakshmi was in the sixty first position of the world richest people according to Forbes Magazine. In 2008 Mittal was reportedly the wealthiest person in Asian and had risen to the fourth richest person in the world. His family owns a large share of the Arcelor Mittal steel Company (Sharada and Nagendra 101).
Mittal has received several awards both in India and internationally including the “Abhinav Bindra” for the 2008 Olympic gold in shooting, the “Padma Vibhushan” also awarded in 2008 and the “Bessemer Gold Medal” of 2007.Others include the “Person of the year” award given to him by the financial times in 2006 and “European businessman of the year” awarded in 2004 by fortune magazine among others (Sharada and Nagendra 101).
He is also involved in philanthropy and is a member of a few trusts around the world. He is a member of the “World Economic Forum’s International Business Council”, the executive committee of the “International Iron and Steel Institute”, “International Investment Council of South Africa” and the “Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan”. He is one of the directors at ICICI Bank Limited and an Advisory board member of Kellogg School of Management in the United States (Sharada and Nagendra 101).
Lakshmi Mittal is married toUsha Mittal and they have a son Aditya and a daughter Vanisha, both have been part of the company’s management board.
Lakshmi is the richest person in Britain; his house was bought at128 million dollars in 2004, the world’s highest price for a house at that time. He has also made political donations like the donation made to the labor party in 2002.He is a big role model in modern business and Industry.
Works Cited
Sharada Manjunath and Nagendra Sharada. Entrepreneurship & Management. Bangalore: Sanguine Technical Publishers, 2008. Print.