The steel titan now oversees the world's largest steel company, Mittal Steel, owning 87.4% of the $28.1 billion (2005 sales) company.

While his rise has been meteoric, there was nothing spectacular about his origins. Mittal was born in an obscure village that did not even have electricity. Later, his family moved to Calcutta, where in 1970, he graduated from the prestigious St Xavier's College specialising in Commercial Studies. Even while studying, Mittal assisted his father, Mohan Lal, who ran a small family-owned steel mill. After his graduation, he went on to work full-time for his father as a trainee.

With the Indian government heavily restricting domestic steel production, during the economic protectionist era, Mittal in 1976 opened a state-of-the-art mill in Indonesia. His search for non-scrap iron to feed the thriving plant took him to Trinidad and Tobago and was one of the key factors in the growth of LNM into a concern spread from Mexico to Kazakhstan . Another factor has been his championing of smaller steel mills, a strategy followed even since his days as a steel magnate elect in the 1970s India.

Connections with London were established in 1995 when the firm's headquarters were transferred from Indonesia to a city Mr Mittal still rates as the world's financial centre.
On Jan 27, Mittal made a $23.7 billion hostile bid for largest rival, Luxembourg-based Arcelor, in an effort to spark more world steel consolidation and enable Mittal Steel to sell higher grade steel to company's like Ford Motor. Arcelor employed numerous techniques to either fend it off. In the end, in spite of all the stonewalling, the Arcelor shareholders voted to go with Mittal.

Mittal was once quoted in The Economist as saying: "The day you go high profile is the day you begin to fall." Already media have uncovered more than the famously-private Mittal might have liked - about his private jet, 21,000 square foot home, his continued status as an Indian citizen. In 2002, the British press uncovered a political scandal when a donation Mittal made to the Labour party led to Tony Blair's intervention in a business deal favoring Mittal.

But purely for business genius, Mittal was awarded Fortune magazine's "European Businessman of the Year 2004' and was named "Entrepreneur of the Year' by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Mittal has also been chosen for the 2007 Dwight D. Eisenhower Global Leadership Award.

In an interview with Fortune magazine, he said: "Being an Indian is a real advantage . . . you learn a lot about bridging differences and reaching compromises when you grow up in a country with over 300 languages and ethnic groups."
He is known as a workaholic, who did not even hesitate to decline an invitation to a party called to honour UK's wealthiest Asians. Mittal, who was too busy tying up a deal in Chicago, decided to give the party, chaired by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the go-by.