Vunderkind
Social Member
The good fortune of Microsoft’s shares have boomeranged the US technical brainiac Bill Gates back to the number one spot on the Forbes’ World Billionaires’ list. He is valued at $76 billion, ahead of Mexico’s Carlos Slim, worth $72 billion.
The annual list, which was released on Monday, listed 1,645 billionaires with an average wealth of $4.5 billion and a collective wealth of $6.4 trillion, an increase of $1 trillion from last year.
“Getting to the $1 billion mark isn’t a race, but some just get there faster. Of the 1,645 members of the Forbes Billionaires list, 31 are under the age of 40. That elite group no longer includes the Google guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both of whom have crossed into their 40′s. One unexpected twist: this year’s group includes a new youngest billionaire,” said Ryan Mac of Forbes Magazine.
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. (read here)
Alhaji Aliko Dangote has emerged the 23rd richest man on the 2014 Forbes Billionaires List just released. Three other Nigerians – Mike Adenuga, Folorunsho Alakija and Abdulsamad Rabiu – were also listed on this year’s Forbes list of 1,645 billionaires across the globe who together are worth $6.4 trillion.
Africa’s richest man Dangote is not relenting in his quest for wealth as he rose from the 43rd position on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2013 to the 23rd position in March 2014 with a net worth of $25 billion, a 20 per cent rise from $20.8 billion he was worth as of December 2013.
Dangote who ranks 64 on the list of 72 most powerful people who rule the world is looking beyond cement, sugar and flour, the three commodities that built his fortune, to the oil business. (read here)
Click to read the full list here
