São Paulo – Saudi prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is the 26th richest man in the world, according to the list disclosed each year by North American magazine Forbes. The owner of a fortune estimated at US$ 19.6 billion, the prince is the main individual shareholder of Citigroup and has participation in several multinationals through his company, Kingdom Holding.
The company presided by Bin Talal aims to build the tallest building in the world in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Although he is the richest man in the Middle East and the 26th in the world, Bin Talal dropped seven positions in the ranking this year, disclosed in the last edition of the magazine.
The second Arab in the list of richest men is Mohammed Al Amoudi. He built his empire starting in 1988, when his company, Midroc, won contracts for the construction of an underground oil reservoir in Saudi Arabia.
Amoudi’s US$ 12.3 billion fortune makes him the 63rd richest man in the world. He also owns gold mines in Ethiopia, oil fields in West Africa and refineries in Sweden and Morocco. It was in the European country that he started making his first profit, back in the 1970s. Amoudi also owns one of the most luxurious hotels in Africa, Addis Ababa Sheraton.
In the 77th place among the richest is Nasser Al-Kharafi, from Kuwait. Together with his family, his net worth is US$ 10.4 billion. Kharafi is the controller of MAK Group, which operates in the areas of energy and shipbuilding, among others, and has shares in banks, factories, food and construction companies.
Brazilians
Businessman Eike Batista, from Rio de Janeiro, is still among the ten richest men in the world. The owner of companies that operate in the area of oil and iron ore exploration, Batista saw his fortune grow from last year to this one. According to the study by Forbes, in 2010 he had a fortune estimated at US$ 27 billion. This year, his net worth reached US$ 30 billion.
One of the owners of brewery AB Inbev, Jorge Paulo Lehmann, is the 55th richest in the world, with a fortune estimated at US$ 13.3 billion.
Heading the list is the Mexican Carlos Slim. The owner of the largest phone operator in the Americas and a shareholder of newspaper The New York Times, Slim was the man who earned most money in 2010. He saw his fortune rise by US$ 20.5 billion, to reach US$ 74 billion. Slim is followed by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who is worth US$ 56 billion, and by the president of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, whose fortune is estimated at US$ 50 billion.
According to Forbes, 2011 is the year in which there were most billionaires listed: 1,210. In 2008, the previous record, there had been 1,125 billionaires in the list. The countries that gained most billionaires since last year were China (54 new members in the group) and Russia (31 new members in the Forbes list). Together, the 1,210 billionaires have US$ 4.5 trillion, or 2.3% of global wealth.
*Translated by Mark Ament
