Lakshmi Mittal, the steell man

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (born June 15, 1950) is a London-based Indian billionaire industrialist, born in Sadulpur, in Churu district of Rajasthan, India, and residing in Kensington, London. He was listed in the Forbes List of Billionaires (2006) as the 5th richest man and the richest Indian in the world with an estimated fortune of $27.7 billion and, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, is the richest in the UK, with a net worth of £14.8 billion.

He spent his first years in Sadulpur, living with his extended family on bare concrete floors and rope beds in a house built by his grandfather. His family, from the Marwari Agarwal caste, was from humble roots; his grandfather worked for the Tarachand Ghanshyam Das firm, one of the leading Marwari industrial firms of pre-independence India. They eventually moved to Kolkata where his father, Mohan, became a partner in a steel company and made a fortune. Lakshmi graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta with a commerce degree in 1969. His classmates knew him as a sharp student who was good with numbers.

In 1994, due to differences with his father and brothers, he branched out on his own, taking over the international operations of the Mittal steel business, which was already owned by the family.
Mittal and Lula da Silva, August 2006. Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/PR
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Mittal and Lula da Silva, August 2006.
Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/PR

Today he is chairman and CEO of the Mittal Steel Company NV, which is the world's largest producer of steel, with steel assets in Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Africa, Poland, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the United States, Ukraine and other countries. He was the Fortune European Businessman of the Year for 2004.

In 2002 he was embroiled in a political scandal dubbed Mittalgate with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Many suspected that a donation by Mittal to the British Labour Party had led to Blair's intervention (a letter to the Romanian Prime Minister) in a business deal favouring Mittal. On July 13, 2005 it was announced that he had donated £2 million to the Labour Party.

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Gigi Becali and his real estate business

Gigi Becali is a business man from Romania.
His family is of Aromanian origin and settled in the Cadrilater, but, following the Treaty of Craiova and the population exchange between Bulgaria and Romania, they had to move to the commune of Sacalaz, Timis County, near Timisoara.

He was born in Zagna, Vadeni, Braila County, as his family was deported in Baragan by the Communist authorities because of their associations with the pre-WWII fascist Iron Guard. His cousins, Victor Becali and Ioan Becali, are also involved in Romanian football.

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he bought land near Bucharest, which over time gained in value. However, the key factor that reportedly made him a millionaire was an exchange of land with the Romanian Army, dubbed by the Romanian scandal press as suspicious, as the Army did not need the land it received and the land it gave was worth much more. Becali gave to the army a 21.5 ha terrain in Ştefăneştii de Jos (about 15 km from Bucharest) and received a 20.9 ha terrain in Băneasa-Pipera, in Northern Bucharest.[2] As the real estate prices skyrocketed in the capital, he sold the land to some companies which built some residential areas. This affair is currently (as of June 2006) investigated by the National Anticorruption Department.

After the 2005 floods, he funded with $4 million the rebuilding of about 200 houses in the Vulturul village (Vadu Roşca commune, Vrancea county) that was destroyed by the overflow of the Siret river. Subsequently the villagers wanted to rename it Vulturul Becali in his honor.