Carlos Slim Helu remained the world’s richest person, but Asia is where today’s big money is flowing, Forbes magazine said in its 2011 list of the world’s billionaires.
Slim, who is almost unknown to the general public outside Mexico, weighed in at a staggering $74 billion of net wealth thanks to his telecoms empire. Already the top dog last year, he increased his fortune by $20.5 billion dollars.
In a now familiar second place was Microsoft founder Bill Gates with $56 billion. The relatively lowly ranking reflected his enormous philanthropic give-aways over the year.
The New York Post picks up a Guardian report that embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could be the richest man in the world.
Worth about $70 billion, the Post says most of his money is stashed in foreign bank accounts and “shadowy real-estate holdings.”
That sum makes Mubarak more wealthy than Mexico’s Carlos Slim and Bill Gates, whose fortunes clock in at $53.5 billion and $53 billion, respectively.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim may be the world’s richest man but he limits his monthly salary to $24,000 and travels in a Suburban, according to his biography.
Mr Slim, 70, knocked Bill Gates form the top of the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires this year with an estimated fortune of US$53.5 billion.
He began his business career aged 10, selling sweets and drinks to his family and later made his name with aggressive investments during crises.
The world’s new richest man, Mexican Carlos Slim, and a fresh crop of billionaires in Asia helped lead a comeback for the wealthiest few on the planet in 2010, Forbes magazine said Wednesday.
The publication’s annual rich list reflected a resurgence of wealth after the financial turmoil of 2009, with the top 10 wealthiest worth a combined 342 billion dollars, compared to 254 billion dollars in the previous year.
“The global economy is recovering. The financial markets came back, especially emerging markets,” said magazine editor-in-chief Steve Forbes.
“There’s a 50 percent increase in general global wealth compared to last year,” Forbes said.
Certainly the economy recovered for the super rich, who took a beating during last year’s stock and commodity market collapses, but saw across-the-board gains this year.
Forbes counted 1,011 billionaires from 55 countries, up from 793 last year, though still shy of the pre-crisis 1,125 listed in 2008.
The top 10 richest people in the world have a combined worth of 342 billion dollars in 2010, up from 254 billion a year ago.
Here are the 20 wealthiest, as announced Wednesday by Forbes magazine in its annual list of the world’s billionaires:
1. Carlos Slim Helu and family. Mexico. Telecoms. 53.5 billion dollars.
2. Bill Gates. US. Microsoft. 53 billion dollars.
3. Warren Buffett. US. Berkshire Hathaway. 47 billion dollars.
Bill Gates is now only the third richest man with a net worth of $58 billion. Mexican telecom mogul, Carlos Slim Helú, trumps Gates by $2 billion.
Had Microsoft not made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo!, Gates would have kept the number one spot, which is now filled by Warren Buffet.
Naturally, the list had no shortage of Andrei’s, Sergei’s or Dimitri’s. However, it only places three Russian billionaires in the top 20.
Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich, and Alexei Mordashov all share the title of “self-made” and each have made their fortune in aluminum.
