Billionaires bounce back
Economy, euro fatten net worths
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle News Services
RESOURCES
?• Forbes' list of world's richest people
?• Richest Texans, according to Forbes
NEW YORK ?— Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and the founders of the Google search engine have landed on Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires after a year when rallying stocks and a strong euro swelled the list to the longest it's ever been.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates remains perched atop the list for the 10th straight year, but investor Warren Buffett is nipping at his heels. Gates' net worth is now estimated at $46.6 billion, still less than half the $100 billion it peaked at in 1998, but up about 13 percent from the $40.7 billion Forbes attributed to him in 2003.
Buffett wins the bragging rights for reaping the year's best gains. He increased his net worth by $12.4 billion to $42.9 billion, narrowing the gap between him and Gates, with whom he competes in bridge tournaments.
German supermarket magnate Karl Albrecht remained in third place, with a fortune of $23 billion. Close behind were Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, whose $21.5 nest egg put him just ahead of Microsoft's other co-founder, Paul Allen, who came in fifth with $21 billion.
Rounding out the top 10 were Helen Walton, wife of the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and four members of her family. They were tied for sixth, with each worth an estimated $20 billion.
All told, it was a fabulous year to be very rich. The magazine counted 587 billionaires around the world, up from 476 in 2003. Their total net worth jumped to $1.9 trillion from $1.4 trillion in 2003.
''After two years of significantly falling fortunes, we really saw an uptick for just about everybody on the list,'' said Luisa Kroll, an associate editor who oversaw the project.
The strength of the euro currency in comparison to the dollar helped launch 22 new billionaires onto the list, for a total of 164 Europeans. Their net worth as a group surged 47 percent to $578 billion.
Rising oil prices helped Russia add eight billionaires, for a total of 25. That puts the country in third place, behind the United States and Germany.
In the United States, billionaires gained not only from a 20 percent rise in stocks, but also from reductions in taxes on dividends and capital gains, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.
The list includes 53 women and 24 single people. The average billionaire's age is 64, and 27 are under 40.
Only six people dropped off the list, compared with 67 who fell off in 2003 and 83 drop-offs in 2002, according to Kroll.
There were 56 billionaires who returned to the list after dropping off in the previous few years, including Yahoo founders David Filo ($2.2 billion) and Jerry Yang ($1.9 billion). They returned to find their upstart search-engine rivals, Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page ($1 billion each) on the list.
Other newcomers included the Canadian creator of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte ($1.1 billion), and Hong Kong's Michael Ying ($1.8 billion), chairman and CEO of clothing company Esprit Holdings Ltd.
And three were behind bars: Russia's richest man, former Yukos oil chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky ($15 billion), Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev ($1.8 billion) and Japanese tycoon Yasuo Takei ($6.2 billion).
Economy, euro fatten net worths
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle News Services
RESOURCES
?• Forbes' list of world's richest people
?• Richest Texans, according to Forbes
NEW YORK ?— Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and the founders of the Google search engine have landed on Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires after a year when rallying stocks and a strong euro swelled the list to the longest it's ever been.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates remains perched atop the list for the 10th straight year, but investor Warren Buffett is nipping at his heels. Gates' net worth is now estimated at $46.6 billion, still less than half the $100 billion it peaked at in 1998, but up about 13 percent from the $40.7 billion Forbes attributed to him in 2003.
Buffett wins the bragging rights for reaping the year's best gains. He increased his net worth by $12.4 billion to $42.9 billion, narrowing the gap between him and Gates, with whom he competes in bridge tournaments.
German supermarket magnate Karl Albrecht remained in third place, with a fortune of $23 billion. Close behind were Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, whose $21.5 nest egg put him just ahead of Microsoft's other co-founder, Paul Allen, who came in fifth with $21 billion.
Rounding out the top 10 were Helen Walton, wife of the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and four members of her family. They were tied for sixth, with each worth an estimated $20 billion.
All told, it was a fabulous year to be very rich. The magazine counted 587 billionaires around the world, up from 476 in 2003. Their total net worth jumped to $1.9 trillion from $1.4 trillion in 2003.
''After two years of significantly falling fortunes, we really saw an uptick for just about everybody on the list,'' said Luisa Kroll, an associate editor who oversaw the project.
The strength of the euro currency in comparison to the dollar helped launch 22 new billionaires onto the list, for a total of 164 Europeans. Their net worth as a group surged 47 percent to $578 billion.
Rising oil prices helped Russia add eight billionaires, for a total of 25. That puts the country in third place, behind the United States and Germany.
In the United States, billionaires gained not only from a 20 percent rise in stocks, but also from reductions in taxes on dividends and capital gains, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.
The list includes 53 women and 24 single people. The average billionaire's age is 64, and 27 are under 40.
Only six people dropped off the list, compared with 67 who fell off in 2003 and 83 drop-offs in 2002, according to Kroll.
There were 56 billionaires who returned to the list after dropping off in the previous few years, including Yahoo founders David Filo ($2.2 billion) and Jerry Yang ($1.9 billion). They returned to find their upstart search-engine rivals, Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page ($1 billion each) on the list.
Other newcomers included the Canadian creator of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte ($1.1 billion), and Hong Kong's Michael Ying ($1.8 billion), chairman and CEO of clothing company Esprit Holdings Ltd.
And three were behind bars: Russia's richest man, former Yukos oil chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky ($15 billion), Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev ($1.8 billion) and Japanese tycoon Yasuo Takei ($6.2 billion).
