USA: Bill Gates once again tops Forbes Magazine's list ranking the world's billionaires

Record ID: 849911

  • Title: USA: Bill Gates once again tops Forbes Magazine's list ranking the world's billionaires
  • Date: 10th March 2006
  • Summary: PRESSER (SOUNDBITE) (English) STEVE FORBES, EDITOR IN CHIEF AND CEO OF FORBES MAGAZINE. SAYING: "Going around in terms of who's on top of the list, no surprise, it is Bill Gates. Number two on the list, no surprise Warren Buffett. Others on the list we think reflect the extraordinary turmoil and positive things happening to the global economy." VARIOUS OF FORBES MAGAZINE
  • Embargoed: 25th March 2006 12:00
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  • Location: Usa
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  • Country: USA
  • Topics: People,Lifestyle
  • Reuters ID: LVA2PNFOAYUG86QZREW524VR0E7E
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  • Story Text: The world now has a record 793 billionaires, up 15 percent from a year ago, with a rising number in India, Russia, Brazil and the Middle East as well as more women, Forbes magazine said on Thursday (March 9).
    This year's line-up of the ultra-wealthy is headed by the usual suspects.
    "Going around in terms of who's on top of the list, no surprise, it is Bill Gates. Number two on the list, no surprise Warren Buffett. Others on the list we think reflect the extraordinary turmoil and positive things happening to the global economy," Editor-in-Chief and CEO of Forbes Magazine, Steve Forbes said.
    Gates topped the list for a record 12th year in a row. The Microsoft co-founder has a net worth estimated at 50 billion US dollars, 8 billion more than perennial Number 2 Warren Buffett, the famed investor of Berkshire Hathaway, worth 42 billion US dollars.
    Forbes said despite Gates's record-holding title, he will eventually fall from the top.
    "One thing you can be guaranteed of is that these positions do eventually change. He has several children, eventually he will leave this world, and as we saw with the Rockefellers, the DuPonts and others, fortunes do break up and get spread out, unless an entrepreneur comes along and re-creates it. So maybe one of his kids have inherited the entrepreneurial gene, will drop out of college when they go to college, and create the next Microsoft," said Forbes.
    Mexican industrialist Carlos Slim moved into the Number 3 spot at 30 billion US dollars, just ahead of Sweden's Ikea founder, Ingvar Kamprad, at 28 billion.
    Soaring stock, oil and commodities prices helped many men and women become billionaires in 2006. But a new member, Canadian playboy Calvin Ayre made his fortune through his online gambling website, Bodog.com. Ayre is raising controversy since a majority of his revenue comes from the U.S., where online gambling is illegal. However, based in Costa Rica, Ayre remains out of reach of U.S. law enforcement.
    Forbes said that he is included in the list because the tally does not determine whether or not a fortune was made legally. Said Forbes,
    "In terms of online gambling, the U.S. Justice Department has said it's illegal, it's a new form of being able to gamble, and the courts will eventually have to sort the thing out. You see the rise of technologies creating all sorts of interesting questions about law, you see it most dramatically in music, in terms of distribution of music, you see it in videos, so these things are going to take time to establish new law, new forms of consensus," he said.
    The Middle East produced the overall list's youngest billionaire, Hind Hariri, 22, who inherited 1.4 billion US dollars from her slain father, the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
    Several 2005 billionaires were removed from this years list, including media mogul Martha Stewart whose net worth has fallen to an estimated 500 million US dollars.
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