For the 15th time in 20 years, America's Bill Gate has topped the list of Worlds billionaires.
The surging price of Microsoft shares
returned US tech tycoon Bill Gates back to the top of
Forbes’s world’s billionaires list, with his $76 billion
beating out Mexico’s Carlos Slim’s $72 billion.
The annual list, released Monday, counted 1,645 men
and women as billionaires, with an average wealth of
$4.5 billion and a collective wealth of $6.4 trillion, up
$1 trillion from a year ago.
Gates, co-founder of the US software firm, showed his
staying power at the top — the world’s richest man
for 15 of the past 20 years, according to Forbes —
despite spending recent years giving away large
sums of money to global health and anti-poverty
programs.
Gates owns about 4.4 percent of Microsoft, making
up less than 20 percent of his total fortune.
But the company’s share price has risen 25 percent
over the past year, and, along with gains in other
assets, he has added $7 billion to his fortune since a
year ago, according to Forbes.
Slim, with a hand in everything from
telecommunications (America Movil) to mining,
finance and industry (Grupo Carso), to retailing and
real estate across the Americas region, was worth $1
billion less than a year ago, hit in part by sagging
markets in South America.
In third was Spain’s Amancio Ortega, whose pockets
have filled with profits from fashion: his hugely
successful Inditex garment empire, parent of popular
chains Zara, Pull & Bear, and Bershka. More recently,
Ortega heavily invested in real estate in Europe and
the United States; his worth was put at $64 billion.
A familiar cast of mega-wealthy filled out the rest of
the top ten: US investment guru Warren Buffett
($58.2 billion); software group Oracle’s founder and
chief executive Larry Ellison ($48 billion); US
industrialists and brothers Charles and David Koch
(each with $40 billion); Las Vegas casino king
Sheldon Adelson ($38 billion); Walmart heiress
Christy Walton ($36.7 billion) and her brother Jim
Walton ($34.7 billion).
Together the $507 billion held by the top ten is larger
than the entire size of the economy of Norway, or
Belgium or Poland in 2012.
- 31 billionaires under 40 -
US billionaires dominated the list, with 492, followed
by 152 from China and 11 from Russia.
Forbes said two-thirds of them made their own
fortunes, while 13 percent inherited. The rest took
fortunes they received and built them up to the $1
billion-plus level.
The biggest climb on the list in the year came from
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. The public sale of the
company’s stock more than doubled his net worth to
$28.5 billion, leaving him at number 21, just behind
Hong Kong’s venerable tycoon Li Kashing and just
ahead of Italian chocolatier Michele Ferrero.
Zuckerberg, 29, led a group of 31 billionaires under
40 years old. Youngest, at age 24, was Perenna Kei —
also known as Ji Peili — the 85 percent shareholder of
real estate company Logan Property Holdings, which
went public in Hong Kong in December. Her father Ji
Haipeng is chairman and chief executive of the
company.
Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of
the oil giant’s king, was likely to remain unhappy
with Forbes after blasting it last year for allegedly
understating his wealth.
Forbes put his fortune this year at just $20.4 billion
— enough for a ranking of number 30 — compared to
$20 billion a year ago.
Defending itself last year, Forbes said the prince
“systematically exaggerates” his wealth.
Last week Alwaleed sent out a press release noting
that the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a rival of
Forbes, put his fortune at $30.5 billion.
In the statement, he assailed Forbes for “use of
incorrect data” and said its approach “seemed
designed to disparage Middle Eastern financial
institutions such as the Saudi stock exchange.”
