Mukesh Ambani becomes the eighth richest person on the planet beating Warren Buffett

Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd. chairman Mukesh Ambani is having a dramatic year in 2020. He had undergone the extreme level of raise and fall in the running year. Cutting a string of deals for his digital business, underwent through wild swings in his wealth and having his brother's finances placed bare for the world to see. Now he can add a new page to it.

The chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. is now worth $68.3 billion, beating Warren Buffett's $67.9 billion as of Thursday. Shares of Ambani's Indian conglomerate have more than doubled since a low in March as its digital unit got more than $15 billion in investments from companies including Facebook Inc. and Silver Lake. This week BP Plc paid $1 billion for a stake in Reliance fuel retail business.

While Ambani's wealth has jumped, he became the only Asian business person in the exclusive club of the world's top 10 richest people last month. Buffett's fortune dropped this week after he gave away $2.9 billion to charity. Ambani 63 is now the eighth richest person on the planet, and Buffett is ninth, according to the index, which was started in 2012.

The 89-year-old Buffet, known as the Oracle of Omaha, slipped down the rankings after donating more than $37 billion of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock since 2006. Berkshire Hathaway's stock performance has also capitulated recently.

India has emerged as a hot-spot for M&A this year, accounting for more than 12% of those announced in the Asia Pacific, the highest ratio since at least 1998.