©AP Photo/AFP
Age: 49
Fortune: inherited and growing
Source: petrochemicals
Net Worth: $20.1 bil
Country Of Citizenship: India
Residence: Mumbai , India, Asia & Australia
Industry: Manufacturing
Marital Status: married, 3 children
Education: University of Bombay, Bachelor of Arts / Science
Stanford University, Master of Business Administration
Snatched title of India's richest resident from Azim Premji. Since splitting with younger brother Anil in 2005 and taking control of $20 billion (revenues) Reliance Industries, founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, fortune has soared by $11 billion. Oil-refining subsidiary Reliance Petroleum, in which Chevron has 5% stake, listed May 2006. Betting $5.5 billion on retail ventures including Reliance Fresh, a chain of food stores; 60 are now open. Megaplans include $10 billion investment to develop special economic zones. Recently got board approval to hike personal stake in Reliance Industries from 44% to 48%.
#14 Mukesh Ambani
#13 Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Courtesy of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Age: 50
Fortune: self made
Source: investments
Net Worth: $20.3 bil
Country Of Citizenship: Saudi Arabia
Residence: Riyadh , Saudi Arabia, Middle East & Africa
Industry: Investments
Marital Status: married, 2 children
Education: Menlo College, Bachelor of Arts / Science
Syracuse University, Master of Science
The most active and successful investor in the Middle East is a nephew of the Saudi king. His risky bet on Citigroup in the early 1990s paid off hugely and accounts for nearly half his fortune. A plan to list shares in his Kingdom Holding Company on the Saudi stock exchange late last year was delayed by weakness in the Saudi market, which has fallen 60% since it peaked in late February 2006. The drop in value of Alwaleed's Saudi holdings was offset by gains in investments such as Citigroup and News Corp. In February 2006 Alwaleed listed Kingdom Hotel Investments, which encompasses his hotel holdings in the Middle East, on the Dubai exchange. Alwaleed loves hotels. Last year he and a partner also closed a $3.9 billion deal to buy Fairmont Hotel & Resorts and more recently he announced that, with Bill Gates, he would take Four Seasons Hotels private for $3.8 billion, including debt.
#12 Liliane Bettencourt
©VILLARD/SIPA
Age: 84
Fortune: inherited
Source: L'Oreal
Net Worth: $20.7 bil
Country Of Citizenship: France
Residence: Paris , France, Europe & Russia
Industry: Manufacturing
Marital Status: married, 1 child
Education:
Daughter of L'Oréal founder Eugene Schueller, a man who is said to have a checkered past with wartime ties to the Nazi regime. Liliane has held onto a controlling stake in the cosmetics giant for more than 4 decades. Her Bettencourt Schueller Foundation supports medical, cultural and humanitarian endeavors in France and developing countries.
#11 Lawrence Ellison
©SF Chronicle/ Mike Kepka
Age: 62
Fortune: self made
Source: Oracle
Net Worth: $21.5 bil
Country Of Citizenship: United States
Residence: Redwood City, California , United States, North America
Industry: Software
Marital Status: married, 2 children
Education: University of Illinois, Drop Out
Brash software titan still at helm of Oracle Systems, database outfit he cofounded 30 years ago. Reshaping the industry with a massive shopping spree; spent $19 billion buying 21 software companies in past 3 years. Biggest acquisitions: PeopleSoft for $11 billion, Siebel Systems for $5.9 billion. Deals added $4.6 billion to company's annual revenue, 18,000 to employee count. Combination makes Oracle, already strong in database management, a big player in business applications like accounting and personnel. Now stitching it all together into software suite Fusion for release by 2008. Predicts earnings will grow 20% a year for the rest of the decade. Chicago native studied physics at U of Chicago; didn't graduate. Started Oracle in 1977. Took public in 1986, a day before Microsoft. Companies have been fiercely competitive ever since. Spends lots of time on distractions: tweaking his 40-acre Japanese-style estate, cruising on his 453-foot yacht, Rising Sun (world's second largest). Plans to sail in 2007 America's Cup in Spain. Turned blasé on being a billionaire: "Money is just a method of keeping score now."
The World's Richest People
Edited by Luisa Kroll and Allison Fass
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It has been a busy year for Forbes' team of fortune hunters. Strong equity markets combined with rising real estate values and commodity prices pushed up fortunes from Mumbai to Madrid. Forbes pinned down a record 946 billionaires. There were 178 newcomers, including 19 Russians, 14 Indians, 13 Chinese and 10 Spaniards, as well as the first billionaires from Cyprus, Oman, Romania and Serbia.
Ingenuity, not industry, is the common characteristic; these folks made money in everything from media and real estate to coffee, dumplings and ethanol. Two-thirds of last year's billionaires are richer. Only 17% are poorer, including 32 who fell below the billion-dollar mark. The billionaires' combined net worth climbed by $900 billion to $3.5 trillion. That equates to $3.6 billion apiece.
The average billionaire is 62 years old, two years younger than in 2005. This year's new billionaires are seven years younger than that. Of list members' fortunes, 60% made theirs from scratch.
In Pictures: The World's Billionaires
Within the ranks are simmering rivalries. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man for 13 years, and his pal Warren Buffett, who holds the No. 2 spot despite enormous charitable donations, are quickly losing ground to Mexico's most-monied man, Carlos Slim Helú. Helú's net worth is up an astonishing $19 billion this year--the single biggest one-year gain in a decade--and is now just $7 billion shy of Gates and $3 billion less than Buffett. In Europe, Russia's mostly young, self-made tycoons are catching up to Germany's often-aging heirs and heiresses. Russia now has 53 billionaires (2 shy of Germany's total), but they are worth $282 billion ($37 billion more than Germany's richest). After a 20-year reign, Japan is no longer Asia's top spot for billionaires: India has 36, worth a total of $191 billion, followed by Japan with 24, worth a combined $64 billion.
India's rich are also marching toward the top of our rankings. Brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani, who split up their family’s conglomerate in 2005, join Lakshmi Mittal, who heads the world's biggest steel company, Arcelor Mittal, among the world’s 20 wealthiest. India now has three in the upper echelons, second only to the U.S.
But even in such a prosperous year, 44 people dropped off the list for various reasons.
All our numbers are based on a snapshot of balance sheets taken on Feb. 9, the day we locked in stock prices and exchange rates. So the five executives who took their Fortress Investment Group (nyse: FIG - news - people ) public at 9:30 a.m. on that morning made the cut. Also on the list is Ernest Gallo, founder of E.&J. Gallo Winery, who died on March 6. But our numbers don't reflect the volatility that shook the markets three weeks later. Between Feb. 9 and March 2 the world's stock markets, as measured by the Morgan Stanley All Country World Local Index, fell by 3.7%. Some fortunes (those based on private accumulations of real estate, for example) didn’t feel a blip. But some suffered severe damage. One big loser was a Spaniard, Enrique Banuelos, whose fortune fell 30% in four days.
Are there billionaires we don’t know about? Surely, yes. For instance, we didn't uncover Ireland's Denis O'Brien, who pocketed $800 million in a junk bond offering, until 13 days after we'd locked in fortunes, so he is not reflected in the rankings.
In Pictures: The World's Billionaires
Acknowledgments
Monir Barakat, Wafra Investment Advisory Group; J. M. Degen & Co.; Andriy Dmytrenko, Dragon Capital, Kiev; Euromonitor; Alaric Hu, Bank of America; Ignatov & Co. Group; John S. Mason, Stephen Mason Associates; Millennium Capital; S&J, Korea; Planet Retail, London; Renaissance Capital; Edward W. Townshend, Colliers Jackson-Stops; Jim Wagoner, United Country Lambert Realty; Zawya Research Database; Finn Øystein Bergh, Kapital magazine; Ketil Skjak, real estate analyst, SEB Enskilda
Reported By
Cristina von Zeppelin, Chaniga Vorasarun, Tatiana Serafin, Devon Pendleton, Megha Bahree, Helen Coster, Kerry A. Dolan, Russell Flannery, Suzanne Hoppough, Megan Johnston, Naazneen Karmali, Maxim Kashulinsky, Matthew Miller, Kiyoe Minami, Forbes Russia, Kirill Vishnepolsky
Additional Reporting By
Maggie Chen, Chandrani Ghosh, Lea Goldman, Evan Hessel, Steven Lee, Burak Mavi, Hulya Odemis, Jessica Ramakrishnan, Matthew Rand, Kemal Sen, Matthew Swibel, Forbes Turkey, Nathan Vardi
Research By
Heidi Brown, Forbes Israel, Forbes Poland, Josephine Lee, Theo Albrecht Germany Deborah Orr
Database By
Mitchel Rand