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Forbes Rich List: the worlds Wealthiest People


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Mexican mobile phone titan Carlos Slim, criticised as a ruthless monopolist, is the world's richest man with $53.5bn (£35.7bn), according to the Forbes rich list. Bolstered by a surge in the share price of his America Movil empire, Slim's wealth edged ahead of the $53bn fortune amassed by the Microsoft boss Bill Gates, making the portly cigar-smoking 70-year-old the first non-American to hold the top spot since 1994

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Bill Gates, co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is now ranked second in the world with a net worth of $53bn. Gates was knocked off the top spot for the second time since 1995 despite gaining $13bn from a year ago as Microsoft shares advanced 50% over the past year

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In third place was the legendary Nebraska-based stockpicker Warren Buffett with $47bn, completing a triumvirate that has occupied the top three positions for five successive years.

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Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, became the fourth-richest person on the planet with $29bn, as his textiles-to-petrol Reliance Industries empire prospered. Pakistan also produced its first billionaire, banking magnate Mian Muhammad Mansha.

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Mittal Steel chief executive Lakshmi Mittal, who hails from India but lives in the UK, has been named as the fifth richest person with $28.7bn

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Bernard Arnault, chairman of luxury group LVMH, is the richest European with a personal fortune of $27.5bn, putting him in seventh place

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The number of Chinese billionaires leapt by 27 to 64. Among those enjoying an upsurge in fortunes was Robin Li, founder of the Chinese internet search engine Baidu, whose wealth reached $3.5bn as his company prospered on Google's abrupt withdrawal from China, due to censorship concerns

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Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, is the youngest billionaire, aged 25. In 2008 he made history as the youngest self-made billionaire to grace the Forbes list but was missing from last year's list after the market crash. Now the Harvard dropout is back, tied at number 212 with a $4bn fortune, more than double the $1.5bn that landed him on the list in 2008

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The number of billionaires from Russia almost doubled from 32 to 62. Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov, a shareholder of Arsenal, often touted as a future buyer of the football club, enjoyed a lucrative year at his metals conglomerate with his net worth surging from $1.7bn to $7.2bn

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Britain's top entrant into the global rich list, the Duke of Westminster, could only muster 45th position as his vast landownings gave him a net worth of $12bn

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The old order is under threat at the world's billionaires club. Traditionally dominated by Americans and Europeans, the top ranks of the world's richest people have been infiltrated by scores of ultra-rich entrepreneurs from the developing world – capped by the Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim.

Today, Slim, the titan of mobile phones in Mexico, criticised as a ruthless monopolist, was crowned as the richest person in the world by Forbes magazine, which calculated his net worth at $53.5bn (£35.7bn). Bolstered by a surge in the share price of his America Movil empire, Slim's wealth edged ahead of the $53bn fortune amassed by the Microsoft boss Bill Gates, making the portly cigar-smoking 70-year-old the first non-American to hold the top spot since 1994.

In third place was the legendary Nebraska-based stockpicker Warren Buffett with $47bn, completing a triumvirate that has occupied the top three positions for five successive years. Britain's top entrant into the global rich list, the Duke of Westminster, could only muster 45th position as his vast landownings gave him a net worth of $12bn.

Below the top few individuals, however, the lower ranks of Forbes's closely watched annual list showed a substantial shifting in the sands of wealth, with Asian entrepreneurs catapulted into remarkable riches by a swift bounceback in emerging financial markets. The number of billionaires from Asian and Australasian nations leapt from 130 to 234 last year, with the net worth of the region's super-rich doubling from $357bn to $729bn.

"Asia is leading the comeback," said Forbes's editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes. "There are remarkable changes taking place in the global economy."

He pointed out that as the number of billionaires in the world swelled from 793 to 1,011, the proportion of Americans dropped from 45% to 40%: "The US still dominates but it's lagging. It's not doing as well as the rest of the world in coming back from the financial crisis."

Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, became the fourth-richest person on the planet with $29bn, as his textiles-to-petrol Reliance Industries empire prospered. Pakistan also produced its first billionaire, banking magnate Mian Mhammad Mansha, and the number of Chinese billionaires leapt by 27 to 64.

Among those enjoying an upsurge in fortunes was Robin Li, founder of the Chinese internet search engine Baidu, whose wealth reached $3.5bn as his company prospered on Google's abrupt withdrawal from China, due to censorship concerns. Another Chinese tycoon, property magnate Wu Yajun, has emerged as the world's richest self-made woman with $3.9bn from her Longfor Properties empire, which spans apartments, townhouses, luxury villas and commercial property across China.

The upsurge in the number of super-rich individuals from less affluent nations went beyond Asia. The number of billionaires from Russia almost doubled from 32 to 62. The owner of the Evening Standard, Alexander Lebedev, re-entered the ranks with $2bn, after threatening to sue Forbes a year ago for claiming that losses in the financial crisis had stripped him of his billionaire status. And Alisher Usmanov, a shareholder of Arsenal, often touted as a future buyer of the football club, enjoyed a lucrative year at his metals conglomerate with his net worth surging from $1.7bn to $7.2bn.

Turkey saw its legion of billionaires swell from 12 to 28. And from South America, a commodities tycoon, Eike Batista, became the first Brazilian to make the world's top 10 for wealth. Batista, 52, a college dropout who made his fortune from gold, oil and diamonds, and has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for Rio's 2016 Olympics, is ranked eighth in the world with $27bn.

Economists say that a rapid rise in super-wealthy individuals from the developing world reflects the pace of globalisation, with cross-border stockmarkets allowing international investors to pump funds at the touch of a button into major corporations in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

"It's symptomatic of the spread of globalisation, the spread of market economies and the maturing of financial markets in these countries," said Homi Kharas, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "These are paper billionaires. The values being placed on their companies have shot up and that's a result of stock exchanges in these countries being a bit better developed and being able to gain foreign investment." But, Kharas added, it also points to a widening in inequality between the "haves" and the "have nots" in poorer parts of the world. "In India, for example, you see some particularly conspicuous consumption and when that's juxtaposed against the grinding poverty of the rest of the nation, it surely does have an effect on social stability," he said.

In British terms, little changed among the ranks of the super-rich. Behind the Duke of Westminster came property developers David and Simon Reuben, the Top Shop boss Sir Philip Green and Virgin supremo Sir Richard Branson. Two new British names joined the billionaires' club – financier Alan Howard, who runs the hedge fund Brevan Howard, and China-based property developer Xiu Li Hawken of Renhe Commercial Holdings, who holds British citizenship.

For the newly crowned richest person on the planet, topping the rich list cements a rapid rise to global fame. A spokesman for Carlos Slim offered no comment, although in the past, the Mexican tycoon has disdained such competitions.

However, he is only top thanks to the generosity of a rival – if Bill Gates had not chosen to hand a huge chunk of his wealth to his Gates Foundation to fight disease in the developing world, the software supremo would be worth as much as $80bn.

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so the richest Nigerian isn't black?

course hes black....dont be silly

but you said richest black guy is nigerian

but the he isn't the richest nigerian

= the richest black guy is not the richest nigerian

= the richest nigerian is not black

i'm sure you missed something out or mis-typed something

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so the richest Nigerian isn't black?

course hes black....dont be silly

but you said richest black guy is nigerian

but the he isn't the richest nigerian

= the richest black guy is not the richest nigerian

= the richest nigerian is not black

i'm sure you missed something out or mis-typed something

richest black guy ON THE LIST is Dangote but its widely accepted in Nigeria that he is not the richest person in the country..........

Forbes obviously work on estimates and I guess because he does a lot of business outside Nigeria they found his wealth easier to calculate even though hes worth about 3 times as much as they estimated than a lot of the other billionaires who focus most of their businesss in Africa, and dont get me started on all the billionaire ex presidents who stole all the loot......

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so the richest Nigerian isn't black?

course hes black....dont be silly

but you said richest black guy is nigerian

but the he isn't the richest nigerian

= the richest black guy is not the richest nigerian

= the richest nigerian is not black

i'm sure you missed something out or mis-typed something

richest black guy ON THE LIST is Dangote but its widely accepted in Nigeria that he is not the richest person in the country..........

Forbes obviously work on estimates and I guess because he does a lot of business outside Nigeria they found his wealth easier to calculate even though hes worth about 3 times as much as they estimated than a lot of the other billionaires who focus most of their businesss in Africa, and dont get me started on all the billionaire ex presidents who stole all the loot......

he is the richest person in the country

if ur talking old money like sani abacha that money has been either spilt between various family members or lost in several swiss accounts

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