INGVAR KAMPRAD $28bn The Swede 79 now lives in Switzerland after founding the flat-pack furniture store Ikea
INGVAR KAMPRAD ($28bn) The Swede, 79, now lives in Switzerland, after founding the flat-pack furniture store Ikea 5. LAKSHMI MITTAL ($23.5bn) Indian-born Mittal, 54, lives in London, and oversees the world’s largest steel company 6 PAUL ALLEN ($22bn) Co-founder of Microsoft 7. BERNARD ARNAULT ($21.5bn) Luxury-goods king,57, who created and manages LVMH 8. Russia predictably has also fared well in the 2006 table, thanks to soaring oil and natural gas prices. There are now 33 Russian billionaires, collectively worth $172bn, almost double the total of a year ago The richest 1. BILL GATES ($50bn) The Harvard dropout is moving Microsoft into TV set-top boxes, games and mobile phones 2.
More generally, the list reflects the shifting patterns of the global economy. India, the hot new star of Asian growth, now boasts 23 billionaires with a total worth of $99bn, more than the combined $67bn estimated wealth of their 27 counterparts in Japan. David Sainsbury, of the supermarket group, slipped to 486th place, with a fortune of $1.6bn (£921m). They were followed once again by the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish, whose vast property holdings in central London gave him a net worth of $6.1bn (£3.5bn). Another pair of press barons, the Barclay brothers, feature in 245th place with a net worth of $2.8bn (£1.6bn), the same as Sir Richard Branson. Once again, the richest Britons were Philip and Cristina Green, owners of the BhS high street chain, with a net worth of $7bn (£4bn), putting them in 74th place overall. 746 with an estimated fortune of exactly $1bn (£576m at present exchange rates), other newcomers are the property investors David and Simon Reuben, with combined wealth of $3.7bn (£2.1bn).
Mr Dyson is tied with J K Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, and Richard Desmond, owner of the Express Group newspapers. Britain’s billionaire contingent is a mixture of old and new faces Apart from Mr Dyson, who slips in at No. Europe has 196 billionaires, worth a combined $802trn, up $128bn on 2005 Germany has 55, more than any country apart from the US. 7, Canada’s Kenneth Thompson and family at No 9, and Li Ka-shing, from Hong Kong, at No 10. Members of this exclusive club hail from 49 countries, but as usual the US dominates, with 371 billionaires – almost half the total. The list was headed, as it has been for the past 12 years, by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, worth $50bn, who has widened his lead over his eternal rival, the Omaha-based investor Warren Buffett Mr Buffett’s wealth actually dropped, from $44bn to $42bn Moving into the top 10 are Bernard Arnault of France at No.
