Four from GCC rank in top 500 billionaires list

Led by Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, four GCC billionaires, including two from the UAE, figure in the list of the world's 500 richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Other super rich individuals among the world's top 10 include Jeff Bezos ($83.5 billion), Warren Buffet ($81.2 billion), Amancio Ortega ($77.3 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($72.4 billion), Carlos Slim ($62.3 billion), Bernard Arnault ($57.2 billion), Larry Ellison ($54.7 billion), Larry Page ($49.3 billion) and Sergey Brin ($48 billion).
Saudi Prince Alwaleed was ranked 51 in the Bloomberg list with his wealth estimated at $18.8 billion.
From the UAE, Majid Al Futtaim, ranked 204 ($7.76 billion), and Hussain Sajwani, ranked 291 ($5.82 billion) were in the Bloomberg list of 500. Sultan Al Kabeer from Saudi Arabia is the fourth billionaire in the list, ranked 402 ($4.7 billion), according to the Billionaires Index.
The world's super rich, topped by Bill Gates with a wealth of $87.9 billion, have added $824 billion so far this year. Total billionaire wealth increased 17 per cent to $6 trillion in 2016, after a decline the previous year, UBS AG and PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a report issued on Thursday.
The report said Asia now has the most billionaires in the world, surpassing the US for the first time with a new billionaire minted on average every other day in 2016.
Asia saw 117 people break the billion-dollar mark in 2016, bringing the most populous continent's total to 637. But America's 563 billionaires still control more total assets at $2.8 trillion. Europe had only three new billionaires in 2016, with its total at 342, according to the report, which tallied data on 1,550 billionaires around the world.
The combined wealth of the world's billionaires also increased 17 per cent in 2016 to $6 trillion, following a dip in 2015. Much of that growth came in China and India, the source of three-quarters of the world's new billionaires.
If growth continues at this pace, the total wealth of Asian billionaires, which currently stands at $2 trillion, will surpass that of US billionaires in four years, the report said. American billionaires still control the most wealth at $2.8 trillion.
China has the highest number of new billionaires with 101 people joining the ranks in 2016. In Europe, the number of billionaires held roughly steady.
The gain in total billionaire wealth was twice the 8.5 per cent increase of the MSCI AC World Index.
"A combination of geopolitical stability in Greater China, rising Chinese real estate prices, infrastructure spending, the growing middle class and buoyant commodity prices all joined together to boost wealth," the PwC report said, citing interviews with Asia's richest people.
Three-quarters of the world's new billionaires hail from China and India. The number of Asian billionaires rose by 117 for a total of 637, with self-made billionaires seeing their wealth rise faster than those who became rich through family ties. The US added 25 billionaires for a total of 563.
The Chinese housing market, in particular, gave billionaires a boost from both their personal investments in luxury homes and in the values of commercial investments.
- issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com