U.S. tops billionaire league, says survey
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from July 1990.
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But despite the financial troubles of the New York developer and casino owner, the United States is the nation with the world's largest number of individual billionaires -- 62 -- according to estimates by Forbes magazine. In addition, there are 37 U.S. families with fortunes over 1 billion dollars, Forbes says in its 23 July issue.
Forbes says one trend it noticed in compiling this year's list was the number of wealthy West Germans. The magazine identified 38 West German billionaire families -- far more per capita than in Japan or the United States.
The list includes 40 Japanese and 99 American individuals or families with a net worth over 1 billion dollars.
The magazine says it identified 271 billionaire individuals or families worldwide, up from 226 last year. The compilation is based on recent stock valuations, comparable real estate valuations and currency exchange rates, among other factors.
The magazine says it excludes from consideration royal families and heads of state because their wealth "derives more from political heritage than from economic effort."
But it doesn't exclude drug dealers. Among the billionaires it lists are Colombia's Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the head of the Medellin cocaine cartel, at about 3 billion dollars, and Colombia's Ochoa family, at about 2 billion dollars. Forbes, in estimates released Tuesday, says the world's wealthiest person for the fourth straight year was Yoshiaki Tsutsumi of Japan, whose railroad and real estate empire includes golf courses, ski resorts and hotels. Forbes estimated his net worth at 16 billion dollars, up about 1 billion dollars from last year.
That estimate was far greater than that of rival business magazine Fortune, which put Tsutsumi's net worth at 3.1 billion dollars last September.
Fortune said the world's richest person is the Sultan of Brunei, at 25 billion dollars. Forbes excludes heads of state from consideration.
Following the 56-year-old Tsutsumi on the magazine's list was Japanese developer Taikichiro Mori, a former economics professor who now owns 78 office buildings. Forbes put Mori's net worth at 14.6 billion dollars.
