Four Indian corporate leaders B K Birla, Keshub Mahindra, C P Krishnan Nair and K P Singh have joined the league of global czars like Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch in the list of the world’s top 50 septuagenarian business heads compiled by US magazine BusinessWeek.

These business tycoons, aged 70 and above, are giving the young generation of businessmen a run for their money.

The list also includes adult entertainment publisher Playboy’s editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner, billionaire investor George Soros and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

At the age of 100 years, Chinese TV tycoon Run Run Shaw, chairman of Hong Kong-based Television Broadcasts, is the oldest in the worldwide list.

Among Indians, chairman of Birla Group Basant Kumar Birla is 87, Mahindra & Mahindra chairman Keshub and chairman of at Hotel Leela Venture C P Krishnan Nair are 84, while realty baron Kushal Pal Singh of DLF group is 77 years old.

“It often seems as though young people rule the world, especially since the dotcom boom (Hello, Google and Facebook guys). But you might be surprised at how many senior citizens media moguls, casino kings, Chinese tycoons are cutting deals, starting new businesses, and generally kicking boomer and Gen Y Butt,” BusinessWeek said.

“If 60 is the new 40, then 80 is the new 60. Mellowing with age simply doesn’t compute for these folks,” it noted.

While legendary investors Buffett, Soros and media moghul Rupert Murdoch are going strong at 78 years each, so are Hugh Hefner at 82 years and Greenspan at 80 years.

About Birla Group of companies’ patriarch, the magazine said B K Birla still maintains his 9 am-to-5 pm office routine. Although many of the businesses are run by younger generation, the octogenarian is still very much in control of several companies, which he runs from his hometown of Kolkata.

“Two years ago, Birla officially willed his businesses to his two daughters, Jayashree and Manjushree, and the largest chunk to grandson Kumar Mangalam Birla.”

Wharton graduate Keshub Mahindra also opted out of day-to-day management of the conglomerate long ago and has appointed nephew Anand Mahindra as managing director. “However, Anand refers to his chairman (Keshub) as the ‘hidden weapon’ and a ‘competitive advantage’ for the group.

“A philanthropist, Mahindra is on the boards of many leading Indian companies, including HDFC, India’s largest mortgage lender,” Businessweek noted.

On Krishnan Nair, who turned a hotelier at the age of 65, years after his army days, the magazine said: “A self-made businessman, Nair is at ease hobnobbing with the Indian powers as he is with world figures like the Dalai Lama, who often stays at the Leela in Mumbai.

Nair oversees his business, but the day-to-day operations are run by his son Vivek.”

“Ask Nair why he named all his business ventures after his wife, and he says, “Leela is worth it,” it added.

Terming DLF chairman K P Singh as “czar of Indian real estate,” the report said he transformed a New Delhi suburb into a call-center hub nearly two decades ago.

Businessweek pointed out that the septuagenarians running the show is “not the norm in the corporate world”.

However, it is not always that “extreme experience” pays off, the report noted, as most seniors on the list failed to beat their respective stock market indices over the past five years with exceptions like Warren Buffett.