The 20 richest billionaires in the world have lost a total of $9.1 billion this week, mainly because of fears of debt crisis in the euro zone, leading to the steepest declines this year on the New York stock market, writes Bloomberg. The wealth of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world fell by $1.5 billion in the last days, to $69.2 billion, after depreciation of the telecom operator America Movil shares by 2.2%, according to Bloomberg Billionaires index. The top 3 billionaires remained unchanged, Slim is followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose fortune fell by $558.1 million this week, to $63.2 billion, and the famous investor Warren Buffett, with $45.2 billion. However, from the beginning of the year, the wealth of the three billionaires rose by a total of $17.2 billion.
Li Ka-Shing, who controls the second largest estate in Asia, has lost this week $144 million, after dropping the shares of Hutchison Whampoa group in Hong Kong by 1.1%. 83 years old, Li is ranked 15 among world billionaires with a fortune of $23.8 billion.
The wealth of Brazilian Eike Batista fell in the same period by $574.4 million to $33.5 billion, 10th place in the world. Shares of oil and gas company that controls, OGX Petroleo & Gas Participações, fell 3%. Batista’s wealth increased by 49% earlier this year and by $7.2 billion last week when the billionaire has sold 5.6% worth of shares of the trading group which he controls.
Amancio Ortega, Spain’s retail magnate, now has a fortune of $39.4 billion, ranked sixth in the world, after a decrease of $1.2 billion this week, caused by the depreciation of Inditex shares, the parent group of Zara.
Stefan Persson, president of Hennes & Mauritz (H & M), fell four places this week in the top of billionaires conducted by Bloomberg, to no. 17, after his fortune dropped by $1.4 billion to $23.2 billion. H & M shares were down 3.8% this week.
Globally, the markets fell back this week after disappointing results of a bond auction in Spain and comments contained in the minutes of last meeting monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, which shows that, amid improving economic conditions, the Central Bank does not intend to take further stimulus measures, such as so-called quantitative easing, purchases of bonds on the secondary market.
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