Well, the world might have lost 30 per cent of its billionaires, but Bill Gates has reclaimed his pole position in the rankings of the uber-capitalist classes - bouncing back from his recent slippage to top Forbes’ annual rich list for 2009 with a total net worth of about $40bn. This despite Gate’s loss of an estimated $18bn in the past year.
Warren Buffett dropped from first to second place, with an estimated fortune of $37bn - despite losing $25bn in the past year as shares in his Berkshire Hathaway dropped nearly a third in value.
Close behind to fill up the top-five slots were Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican cellular phone mogul who recently made a big investment in the New York Times with $35bn; Larry Ellison, founder of tech giant Oracle with $22.5bn; and Ingvar Kamprad, founder of chic Swedish furniture store Ikea, with $22bn.
At the bottom end, a total of 33 billionaires tied for 468th place with estimated fortunes of just $1.5bn.
More interestingly, only 32 Russians made Forbes’ list this year - a fall of nearly 66 per cent from the 2008 total. Our earlier post on the domestic Russian ‘rich list’ by Russian business magazine Finans shows why. And among those on last year’s list who didn’t qualify this year are former AIG chief executive Hank Greenberg, former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Even more interesting are the staggering amounts that some “rich list” members lost in the past year, a few are mentioned at the top, but the biggest loser - who still managed to make the list - is Anil Ambani, owner of India’s Reliance Infrastructure, who, according to Forbes, lost a cool $32bn. Then comes Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, at No. 8, who lost $25.7bn during the past year narrowly outpacing Buffett who lost $25bn. Just behind him comes Oleg Deripaska, who according to Forbes has lost $24.5bn, reducing his weath to just $3.5bn. In relative terms, this counts as one of the most severe losses - and could be much more if you go by Finans’ estimate that Deripaska was worth a net $40bn a year ago.
In fact, Gates’ $18bn loss looks modest by comparison.
Understandably, perhaps, the biggest losers don’t really want to dwell on their losses - even if, like Saudi uber-billionaire Prince Walid, they’re quite happy to trumpet about their wealth.
As the NYT reports on Thursday, the office of Prince Walid, chairman of Kingdom Holding, announced on Wednesday that he was in the top 25 billionaires for 2009 — at No. 22, actually — and has made the magazine’s annual list for 10 consecutive years. This despite the large hit the prince took last year in his investment in Citigroup which, combined with a steep fall in Kingdom’s share price, probably far exceeds the $7.9bn loss that his company earlier reported on its portfolio.
Related links:
The world’s billionaires in 2009 - Forbes
Bill Gates reclaims title as world’s richest man - WSJ
Super-losers among Russia’s super-rich - FT Alphaville
Walid trumpets billionaire status amid turmoil - NYT
