They make flip-flops and pet food. They sell miniskirts and motorcars. They mine iron ore and distribute soda. Their net worth totals $2.7 trillion, about the size of the gross domestic product of France, the fifth-biggest economy on the planet.
The ranking shows who’s on top (America Movil SAB Chairman Emeritus Carlos Slim, with a net worth of $77.5 billion), who’s faltering (Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, who’s down $6.8 billion since Jan. 1) and who’s just wealthy enough to make our top 200 (SAS Institute Inc. co-founder John Sall, who’s worth $5.8 billion).
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, both in the top five, are household names. Yet nobody racked up billions faster than relatively unknown No. 3, Amancio Ortega of Spain. The 76-year-old founded Inditex SA, the world’s largest clothing retailer, which is known for its more than 1,600 trendy Zara stores. He made more than $18 billion from the start of the year through Oct. 5 — or about $66 million a day. That windfall was more than enough for the Spanish tycoon to eclipse Buffett — who’s now No. 4, with $48.4 billion as of Oct. 5.
Ortega’s ascent coincides with an overall rise in retail stocks. Low cotton costs, cheap credit and demand for reasonably priced goods have driven shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Inditex to records. Nine of the world’s 25 wealthiest people are retail moguls. Among them are Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, four members of the Walton family that controls Wal-Mart and Stefan Persson, the largest shareholder in Swedish clothing giant Hennes & Mauritz AB.
Bloomberg News unmasked more than 30 hidden billionaires this year. Brazil’s Dirce Navarro de Camargo inherited her late husband’s industrial conglomerate, Camargo Correa SA, in 1994. Elaine Tettemer Marshall controls 15 percent of Koch Industries Inc., the second-largest closely held company in the U.S. With fortunes of about $12 billion each, both women remain billions shy of Gina Rinehart, the richest woman in the Asia-Pacific region. She’s squabbling with her children over the family’s $19.1 billion minerals empire.
Bloomberg News also revealed Zong Qinghou as mainland China’s richest man, who had a net worth of $20.1 billion on Oct. 5. The once poor soda seller today commands the Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. beverage empire. With soft drinks producing hard cash, wealth creation is booming in China — and beyond.
