James Duncan Davidson
The outgoing year has definitely been successful for most billionaires. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index (BBI) says, that the total wealth of the world's 500 richest people increased by approximately $ 1 trillion in 2017. For comparison, they became richer in total for $ 237 billion in the last year. Jeffrey Bezos, whose fortune is estimated at $ 99.6 billion, became the absolute champion in terms of income of the year. Amazon's CEO headed the list of the world's richest men, having pushed Bill Gates out from the first line. For a year, he increased his income by $ 32.4 billion. As for the founder of Microsoft, Mr. Gates has occupied the first position from May 2013. Now his fortune is estimated at $ 91.3 billion. The third line of the 2017 ranking belongs to Warren Buffett with $ 85 billion (+ $ 11.8 billion for the year).
2017 was the most successful year for the IT industry. According to BBI, 57 representatives of this sphere became richer by $ 262 billion in 2017. Another trend of the current year: for the first time the number of billionaires from Asia in the Bloomberg index exceeded the number of Americans. At the same time, capital of Chinese are the fastest growing: the aggregate state of 38 Chinese billionaires, represented in BBI, increased by $ 117 billion in 2017, that is, by 65% compared to last year. This is the highest among the 49 countries represented in the index. At the same time, billionaires from the US are still prevailing. There are 159 of them, and these people have become richer for another $ 315 billion this year. Now, their total capital has reached $ 2 trillion.
According to a report prepared by the Swiss bank UBS together with the consulting company PwC and published in October, the cumulative capital of the world’s billionaires grew by 17%, to $ 6 trillion. Funds of billionaires from Asia have grown more than the world average - by 31%, to almost $ 2 trillion. Nevertheless, the US remains the leader - US billionaires own a total of $ 2.8 trillion. The state of European billionaires grew only by 5%, to $ 1.3 trillion, and their number increased by only three people, to 342.
The average age of billionaires in the world was 63 years (by comparison, it was 60 years in 1995), while Asian billionaires are on average slightly younger - 59 years, for China - 55 years, and American and European older - 67 and 66 years respectively . The majority of billionaires are of the first generation (70%), while there were less than half of such billionaires in 1995 (45%).
source: bloomberg.com
2017 was the most successful year for the IT industry. According to BBI, 57 representatives of this sphere became richer by $ 262 billion in 2017. Another trend of the current year: for the first time the number of billionaires from Asia in the Bloomberg index exceeded the number of Americans. At the same time, capital of Chinese are the fastest growing: the aggregate state of 38 Chinese billionaires, represented in BBI, increased by $ 117 billion in 2017, that is, by 65% compared to last year. This is the highest among the 49 countries represented in the index. At the same time, billionaires from the US are still prevailing. There are 159 of them, and these people have become richer for another $ 315 billion this year. Now, their total capital has reached $ 2 trillion.
According to a report prepared by the Swiss bank UBS together with the consulting company PwC and published in October, the cumulative capital of the world’s billionaires grew by 17%, to $ 6 trillion. Funds of billionaires from Asia have grown more than the world average - by 31%, to almost $ 2 trillion. Nevertheless, the US remains the leader - US billionaires own a total of $ 2.8 trillion. The state of European billionaires grew only by 5%, to $ 1.3 trillion, and their number increased by only three people, to 342.
The average age of billionaires in the world was 63 years (by comparison, it was 60 years in 1995), while Asian billionaires are on average slightly younger - 59 years, for China - 55 years, and American and European older - 67 and 66 years respectively . The majority of billionaires are of the first generation (70%), while there were less than half of such billionaires in 1995 (45%).
source: bloomberg.com