Damn Rich People
The ten richest people in the world (according to the 2012 list of the World’s Richest Persons published by Forbes Magazine) are:
No. 10 – Karl Albrecht who is worth US$25.4 billion. Karl owns the supermarket giant Aldi Sud which has 4,500 stores worldwide. He started out together with his brother Theo at their mother’s corner grocery store after World War 2.
The two brothers turned the store into a retail chain keeping their prices low. They split ownership in 1961 when Karl took the stores in Germany and expanded to the U.K., Australia and the U.S.A.
No. 9 – Li Ka-Shing who is worth USS$25.5 billion. He is Asia’s richest man and his businesses employ 270,000 people. He is one of the great empire builders and built one of every seven residences in Hong Kong. He owns Hutchison Port Holdings and Northumbrian Water. He also has investments in Facebook and Spotify.
No. 8 – Stefan Persson who is worth US$26 billion. He is the owner of H&M apparel chain. He opened his first stores in Croatia, Singapore and Romania. He now owns 2,500 shops in 43 countries. Persson also owns the 21-cottage village of Linkenholt in Hampshire, England.
No. 7 – Eike Battista – who is worth US$30 billion. He is Brazil’s richest man and owns the oil and gas driller OGX Petroleo e Gas. In February 2011, he bought Ventana Gold which he says, owns an incredibly promising mine in Colombia.
No. 6 – Larry Ellison – who is worth USS$36 billion. He is the owner of Oracle, the software and hardware giant. He also acquired Taleo and Right Now. His big sport is yachting and he won the America’s Cup in 2010.
No. 5 – Armancio Ortega – who is worth US$37.5 billion. He owns Zara (clothes store), Torre Picasso (a 43-storey skyscraper in Madrid) and Epic Residences & Hotel. He started off as a gofer in a shirt shop and is the son of a railway worker.
No. 4 – Bernard Arnault – who is worth US$41 billion. He is the owner of Louis Vuitton and Bulgari. Arnault formed a joint venture with Heng Long, one of the leading tanneries of crocodile leather. He also owns Carrefour supermarket, Indigo Island in the Bahamas and ski chalet Cheval Blanc in Courchevel.
No. 3 – Warren Buffett who is worth US$44 billion. He is the owner of Berkshire Hathaway and has made his fortune in investments.
No. 2 – William Gates the III who is worth US$61 billion. Gates is the owner and founder of Microsoft software. He is the most generous person on the planet. He gave away US$28 billion of his fortune to help eradicate polio in India. He has shares in Ecolab and Televisa.
No. 1 – Carlos Slim Helu who is worth US$69 billion. He is the owner of Telecom and has been the world’s richest man for the past three years.
