Forbes list shows the rich get richer

WASHINGTON - The rich, they say, just get richer - and the new list of the world's near-700 billionaires compiled by the financial magazine Forbes indicates the old adage is truer than ever.

According to Forbes' latest annual survey, the 19th so far, there are 691 people on the planet with a personal net worth superior to US$1,000,000,000 (NZ$1.3bn). Their collective fortune adds up to US$2.2 trillion, compared with US$1.9 trillion in 2004. By way of comparison, Britain has a total gross domestic product of a mere US$1.7 trillion.

The world's richest man, for the 11th year in succession is Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, worth an estimated US$46bn, with investor Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway in second place.

Thanks perhaps to the strength of sterling, eight British billionaires make their debut on the list. They include the property magnate John Whittaker, worth £883m, and the 80-year-old Paul Raymond, whose property and publishing fortune is valued by Forbes at £727m. The Sainsbury family comes in at £2.2bn, while the Barclay brothers are reckoned to be worth £1.7bn, putting them in 160th place. Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone and his family come in with £1.9bn.

The richest Britons however are Philip and Cristina Green, owners of BHS, 68th on the overall list with a net worth of £3.27bn. They replace Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster, who has slipped to 80th place overall, with his property fortune in central London and elsewhere now valued at £2.9bn. JK Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, remains on the list with an estimated wealth of £519m, largely thanks to a world wide sale of over 250m copies of her books. But despite her fortune of  £519m, she has slipped from 552nd to 620th place on the list.

Between 2004 and 2005, the biggest single rise was registered by the Indian steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, whose net worth increased from US$6.3bn to US$24.7bn. A new entry in the magazine's Top Ten is Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the Swedish furniture empire Ikea.

But if the world's wealth is ever more concentrated at the top, its geographical spread is growing. Almost 50 countries are now represented, with first time entries from Poland and Iceland, as well as Kazakhstan and Ukraine, both members of the former Soviet Union.

Among the new faces on the list the US has the greatest number of new faces, with 69. Not surprisingly, New York as the highest concentration of billionaires, followed by Moscow and San Francisco. Next come London and Los Angeles, tied at 18 billionaires apiece.

The list contains 17 re-entries, while 30 people dropped below the US$1bn mark and fell off, while 14 members of the select group died.

The 691 billionaires have an average age of 64. But 29 are under 40. Youngest of them all Albert von Thurn und Taxis from Germany, a stripling of 21 but with a net worth of US$1.98bn.

- INDEPENDENT