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| Bill Gates |
1.
BILL GATES, 58 years old, $78.4
billion, Microsoft (USA)
He's back.
Helped by a bounce in Microsoft shares, Bill Gates returns to the top of our
annual Billionaires list this year amid a leadership shakeup at the software
giant he founded. He's been the richest man in the world for 15 out of the last
20 years. After years focused on his philanthropy, Gates plans to spend more of
his time working with product managers at Microsoft as rivals like Google and Apple continue to outshine the company in the market. Gates
stepped down as Microsoft chairman in February, when new CEO Satya Nadella took
over. Meanwhile, Gates remains focused on his foundation's efforts to eradicate
polio (he secured $335 million in pledges to the cause from six billionaire
comrades, including $100 million each from Mexico's Carlos Slim and former New
York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg) and getting fellow billionaires more involved
with philanthropy. He and Warren Buffett have thus far convinced over 100 of
the super rich to sign on to the Giving Pledge, a promise to donate at least
half one's net worth to charity.
 | |
| Carlos Slim Helu |
2.
CARLOS SLIM HELU, 74 years old,
$72.9 billion, Telecom (Mexico)
His
four-year run as world's richest person has come to an end, primarily because
shares of Minera Frisco, his mining company, have fallen more than 50% in the
past year as the price of gold and copper plummeted. That plus a dip in the
value of his largest asset, pan-Latin American telecom firm America Movil,
combined to knock $1 billion off his net worth, making him the only billionaire
among the world's 10 richest to get poorer in the past year.
America Movil has come under pressure in Mexico after the passage of a new
anti-monopoly telecom and media law. America Movil has 70% or more market share
of both the landline and mobile markets in Mexico. Slim also holds a
controlling interest in industrial conglomerate Grupo Carso, financial venture
Grupo Financiero Inbursa, real estate enterprise Inmuebles Carso and
infrastructure development and operating company Impulsora del Desarrollo y el
Empleo en América Latina, or Ideal. He continues to hold minority stakes in
U.S. companies Saks Fifth Avenue and The New York Times Co. He has also
invested in two Spanish companies: Grupo Prisa, a media conglomerate, and
CaixaBank, an investment banking firm.
 | |
| David Thomson |
3.
DAVID THOMSON, 56 years old, $23.1
billion, Media (Canada)
David
Thomson and his family own a media and publishing fortune founded by their
grandfather Roy Thomson. Now in its third generation, the family business is
run via private holding company Woodbridge, which holds a 55% in Thomson
Reuters; David Thomson serves as chairman of Thomson Reuters. His brother Peter
Thomson is co-chair of Woodbridge, which holds assets owned by Roy Thomson's
seven grandchildren, among them cousin Sherry Brydson.
Thomson Reuters stock makes up about 70% of the family's fortune; it rose about
20% in the past year as of mid-Feb. 2014. David Thomson is part owner of the
National Hockey League's Winnipeg Jets; Woodbridge has a minority stake in the
Montreal Canadiens NHL hockey team.
 | |
| Jorge Paulo Lemann |
4.
JORGE PAULO LEMANN, 74 years old,
$22 billion, Beer (Brazil)
Jorge Paulo
Lemann may be Brazil's richest man thanks to his shares in Anheuser-Busch
InBev, the world's largest brewer, but in 2013 it was another deal that put him
in the headlines. His private equity firm, 3G Capital, acquired H.J. Heinz
Company together with Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway in July for $23
billion. This is Lemann's second acquisition of an American name brand. In
2010, his 3G Capital bought Burger King in a leveraged
buyout, gunning profit margins by slashing around 4,000 jobs. Lemann is a
former Brazilian tennis champion who played at Wimbledon. He has lived in
Switzerland since 1999, after an attempted kidnapping of his children.
 | ||
| Luis Carlos Sarmiento |
5.
LUIS CARLOS SARMIENTO, 81 years old,
$16 billion, Banking (Colombia)
Luis Carlos
Sarmiento Angulo took a fortune amassed in the construction industry and
invested it in banks. His Grupo Aval now controls one third of all banking in Colombia.
The 81-year-old still chairs the company and works more than 60 hours a week.
His only son, Luis Carlos Sarmiento Gutiérrez, is the acting CEO. The heir
apparent got an engineering degree at the University of Miami, then an MBA at Cornell. He crunched numbers in Procter & Gamble's finance
department for four years before moving home to Bogota. Grupo Aval completed a
$1.23 billion local offering in Jaunary, and Sarmiento Angulo bought more than
95% of the new shares. He also bought Colombia's largest newspaper, El Tiempo,
in April 2012 and announced a deal to build a Grand Hyatt in Bogota two months
later.
6.
IRIS FONTBONA, 71 years old, $14
billion, Mining (Chile)
Iris
Fontbona is the widower of the late billionaire Andronico Luksic, who died of
cancer in 2005. He left his business to his wife and three sons, Jean-Paul,
Andronico, and Guillermo Luksic. The family suffered another loss in March 2013
when Guillermo died of lung cancer at age 57. His son Nicolas reportedly took
over his father's role in the family business, as chairman of Quinenco, a
consumer packaging maker where the family owns a majority
stake. Quinenco also has interests in Banco de Chile and in energy,
transportation and port services. The family's largest holding is its
controlling stake in Antofagasta, one of the world's largest copper miners.
Jean-Paul is chairman and Andronico heads up the financial division. The family
also owns two chains of Croatian beach resorts, Adriatic Luxury Resorts and
Laguna Porec. In 2011 Andronico received an award from the Americas Society for
contributions to Harvard and Babson College. During a December 2011 telethon,
the usually press-averse Iris donated $3 million to help Chileans with
disabilities.
 | |
| Carlos and Alejandro B. |
7.
CARLOS AND ALEJANDRO BULGHERONI,
$5.8 billion, Oil and Gas (Argentina)
Lifelong
oil men, brothers Alejandro Pedro Bulgheroni and Carlos Alberto Bulgheroni
derive their wealth from Bridas Energy, which holds a 40% stake in Pan American
Energy, a joint venture with BP. Pan American Energy produced just over 22,000
barrels of oil per day last year, taking 17% of total market share in
Argentina. In 2010, Carlos engineered the sale of 50% of Bridas, founded by his
father in 1948, to China's CNOOC, which paid $3.1 billion for
the stake; Alejandro is Bridas' vice president. In 2011, they agreed to acquire
Exxon's downstream assets in the country, paying a reported $415 million; they
are planning on investing at least $1.2 billion to increase capacity and take
market share from 14% to 20% over the next three years. The Bulgheronis also
own farmland in Uruguay, where they have a milk production facility, a winery,
and a wind farm.
 | |
| Gustavo Cisneros |
8.
GUSTAVO CISNEROS, 69 years old, $4
billion, Media (Venezuela)
Gustavo
Cisneros is the owner of the revamped Cisneros Group, a conglomerate with
interests in Venezuelan television stations, telecom, a regional brewery, a
real estate company and a baseball team. In October 2013, Gustavo's daughter
Adriana became CEO and oversaw the restructuring of the entire group into four
main branches: Media, Interactive, Real Estate and Products & Services.
Back in 2007, with U.S. billionaire Jerry Perenchio and
Mexican billionaire Emilio Azcarraga Jean, Cisneros sold U.S. Spanish-language
TV network Univision to a private equity consortium led by U.S. billionaire
Haim Saban for $13.7 billion. Although the Cisneros Group's Venevision has
tangled with the Venezuelan government in the past, the company now avoids
politics, focusing instead on entertainment, including hugely popular Latin
American soap operas. Venevision reportedly has a 67% audience share in
Venezuela and reaches 500 million people around the world. The Cisneros Group
also owns the Miss Venezuela contest, and has reportedly been looking to
purchase a television channel in Brazil. In October 2011, Carlos Slim's America
Movil bought Cisneros' digital content business, DLA Inc., for $50 million;
Cisneros has since been adding digital advertising businesses to his portfolio.
He and wife Patricia are familiar figures in high society, hobnobbing with
former presidents like George H. W. Bush, designers and fellow billionaires. The
couple boasts an extensive collection of Latin American art. Madrid's Reina
Sofia Museum displayed some of the collection in 2013.
9.
EDUARDO BELMONT ANDERSON, 68 years
old, $2.9 billion, Cosmetics (Peru)
Eduardo Belmont is the owner and president of Belcorp, a door-to-door
cosmetics company that operates in 16 Latin American countries and the U.S. He
was new to the Forbes Billionaires list in 2013 when we valued his fortune at
$6.1 billlion. But new information about the company led us to compare it to
multi-level marketing companies like Herbalife or direct sales companies like
Oriflame, which are priced at much lower multiples than mainstream cosmetics
firms like Brazil's Natura. Belcorp's sales have held steady at $2 billion.
Eduardo and his billionaire brother Fernando used to run a jointly-owned
cosmetics firm called Yanbal, but in 1988 the two parted ways and each now runs
his own beauty enterprise. Fernando's company kept the Yanbal name. Eduardo has
degrees from both Harvard Business School and Wharton.
10.
JACKY XU,
$1.4 billion, Apparel (St. Kitts & Nevis)
Xu is the
founder of Trendy International Group, one of China's most successful home-grown
apparel companies.
Source: Forbes
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