Bill Gates: Richest Man on Earth Once Again

Gates still world’s richest man despite competition

Forbes Magazine has released its annual report of the world’s richest people, and for the twelfth year in a row, the founder of Microsoft, Chairman Bill Gates, ranked number one, making him the richest man on earth, followed by perennial No. 2 Warren Buffett, the famed investor of Berkshire Hathaway, worth US$42 billion, a $2 billion decrease from the year before.

Bill Gates increased his fortune by some US$400 million last year to about US$50 billion, according to the annual rich list published recently by Forbes magazine.

Forbes added 102 people to its billionaire list this year, bringing the total number of those counted as the outrageously wealthy to a whopping 793, a 15 percent increase over the year before.

But the Microsoft founder is facing increased competition, with rising numbers of the super rich coming from India, Russia, Brazil and the Middle East.

In all, the richest of the rich increased their financial burden of extreme wealth by some $400 billion. The magazine estimated the combined net worth of the world’s billionaires at 2.6 trillion dollars and said that the increase was largely due to soaring stock, oil and commodities prices.

“A billion just is not what it used to be,” said Forbes Associate Editor Luisa Kroll, presenting the 20th annual list at a New York news conference.

New Zealand brothers Richard and Christopher Chandler made it to 382nd on the list. Their placing was based on a net worth of US$2 billion ($3.13 billion).

The only other New Zealander on either list was Graeme Hart, who controls the Burns Philp food group. He was fifth on the Australia and New Zealand list and 451st in the world rankings with US$1.7 billion.

Mexican industrialist Carlos Slim moved into the No 3 spot at US$30 billion, just ahead of Sweden’s Ikea founder, Ingvar Kamprad, at US$28 billion. Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal was fifth at US$23.5 billion, followed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at US$22 billion.

Moving into the top 10 are French luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault, No 7 at US$21.5 billion, Saudi business magnate Prince al-Waleed bin Talal al-Saud had US$20 billion dollars for eighth place, followed by Canadian publisher Kenneth Thomson at US$19.6 billion dollars and Li Ka-shing, head of the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa at US$18.8 billion.

Calculations were based on asset prices and exchange rates as of February 13.

The Uber Rich
“Why is this list growing?” asked Forbes chief executive and Editor-in-chief Steve Forbes, himself a billionaire. “The global economy has been growing the last two years at rates not seen since World War II, fuelled by a commodities boom with a whiff of inflation.”

New York boasts the largest number of billionaires, with 40 residing in the Big Apple. The world’s youngest billionaire is 22-year-old Hind Hariri, daughter of assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. She inherited $1.4 billion from her father.

Gains made in emerging economies and strong markets around the world contributed to the surge in wealth. India came in with the most billionaires in Asia, with 23 altogether. Their net worth equals $99 billion, overtaking the wealth of billionaires in Japan, Asia’s former leader. Japan’s 27 billionaires are worth a combined $67 billion.

Russia added 7 billionaires to the Forbes list, for a total of 33 worth $172 billion. The gains were made mostly due to increases in oil and gas prices. The former Soviet-bloc leader topped oil-rich Saudi Arabia’s 11 billionaires, collectively worth $68 billion, compared to US$42 billion for its seven billionaires a year ago.

One Russian oil tycoon who fell off the list was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former YUKOS chief executive imprisoned in Siberia for fraud and tax evasion.

“We figure he still has somewhere below US$500 million,” “Russia continues to astound us,” Kroll said.

Brazil doubled its number of billionaires to 16 with the help of some massive public offerings. In the Middle East and Africa, including Turkey, there were 56 billionaires, up from 29 last year, with a combined worth of US$167 billion, up from US$103 billion a year ago.

Among the strong performers were, Turkey added eight new people to the list for a total of 21 billionaires, based largely on telecommunications, media and banking.

Other notable appearances on the list were oil mogul and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, whose US$18.2 billion saw him jump 10 places to 11th in the global ranking.

The list is a source of great speculation and criticism each year, with some of those named laughing off the estimates of their net worth as wildly low or high.

Kroll acknowledged the difficulty of the task since many billionaires refuse to co-operate, but defended the information, gathered by 30 reporters in seven countries, as unrivaled. “Some people show us their spreadsheets showing the positive side of their business, so we have to ask what motivates them. Are they going to sell a business?” Kroll said.

Others are about to divorce and want to appear as being worth less, she said. “We always try to be on the more conservative side,” she added.

Rising Fortunes
Gates, 50, dropped out of Harvard University in 1977 to become the richest man in America in 1993 at the age of 37. At that point, he had $6.3 billion. In 1993, Microsoft was just beginning to hit its stride as the world’s number-one provider of software. When the company went public in 1986, 100 shares of its stock cost $2,100. By 1993, that investment was worth $77,850.

By 1998, Gates’ fortune had reached an all-time high of an estimated $100 billion. However, the bust of the Internet economy and a 63 percent decline in the price of Microsoft stock in 2000 left Gates with a mere $58.7 billion.

The newly created Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation began with roughly $17.1 billion in its coffers, following a $6 billion donation from Gates — the largest such donation ever. The foundation’s fortune has increased to $29 billion and is responsible for many charitable works around the globe — from a $100 million HIV/AIDS initiative in Botswana to a $1.5 billion commitment to distribute vaccines to children in developing countries.

Over the past several years, Gates has donated a sizeable chunk of his billions to charity. He and his wife, Melinda, got the ball rolling when the two created the richest charitable foundation in the U.S. with the merger of the William H. Gates Foundation, named after the elder Gates, and the Gates Learning Foundation, in 1999.

TOP 20
The Top 20 from the ranking of the world’s 100 richest people as estimated by Forbes magazine. Listings include rank, name, and home country; age where known, wealth in billions of US dollars, and source of the money.