adminsince 2007. He took the title away from Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim.
The 57-year-old Gates’ net worth grew in recent weeks thanks to a rally on Wall Street. His fortune climbed about US$10 billion this year, hitting a five-year high on Thursday when the stock market closed.
Slim (73), owns a fortune valued at US$72,1 billion, according to Bloomberg, whose billionaires index is updated every day.
It dropped more than US$2 billion this year after Mexico’s Congress passed a bill to end the market dominance of his America Movil.
The bill would allow regulators to break up phone companies with more than 50 percent of the market or force them to share their networks.
America Movil has 70 percent of Mexico’s mobile-phone subscribers and 80 percent of the country’s landlines.
Gates has stakes in more than a dozen publicly traded companies, including the Four Seasons hotel chain, and several closely held operations, Bloomberg said. Less than a quarter of Gates’ fortune is held in Microsoft.
Gates has donated US$28 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a charity working largely in poor countries to improve health and education.
The Forbes list of the world’s richest people is better known than the Bloomberg list.
It was last published in March, and at the time Slim was number one, Gates was number two, Spanish fashion mogul Amancio Ortega and US financial wizard Warren Buffet was fourth. — fin24.
Online Reporter