The Strategist

Jeff Bezos hits second place in Bloomberg Billionaires Index



03/30/2017 - 14:11



According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, yesterday Jeff Bezos, founder and Head of the world's largest online retailer Amazon.com, increased his fortune by $ 1.5 billion to $ 75.6 billion. This helped him overtake Berkshire Hathaway's owner Warren Buffett and founder of Inditex Amancio Ortega. This is the first time when Jeff Bezos took the second place after traditional leader Bill Gates.



Steve Jurvetson via flickr
Steve Jurvetson via flickr
Yesterday turned out to be twice as successful for American billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder and owner of the world’s largest online retailer Amazon.com. Shares of his company at New York trading rose immediately by $ 18.32. Consequently, Amazon.com and its owner’s capital grew by $ 1.5 billion. Such a sharp rise was triggered by Amazon.com’s announcement made the day before. The company told that it is going to purchase Dubai online retailer Souq.com. Subsequently, Mr. Bezos climbed up the Bloomberg Billionaires Index rating, which assesses capital of the world's 500 richest people following each trading day in New York.

Thus, at the end of yesterday, Jeff Bezos's fortune was estimated at $ 75.6 billion. He is still much behind the rating’s long-standing and undefeated leader, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose fortune reached $ 86 billion yesterday. However, Mr. Bezos, the former computer engineer who created Amazon.com in 1994 to trade books through the Internet, managed to outwalk just two other billionaires - legendary investor Warren Buffett, the founder and owner of Berkshire Hathaway holding company, and founder of Inditex company (brands Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka) European Amancio Ortega. Capital of Amazon.com’s founder increased by $ 10.2 billion in total, and this is the third result by rate of the increase state in the rankings. Only Chinese billionaire Wang Wei, who went up by $ 18.4 billion, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (plus $ 11.4 billion) were faster in the current year. In 2016, Amazon.com's revenue, in which 53-year-old Jeff Bezos owns 17 percent stake, was $ 136 billion.

Overall, number of super-rich people will increase dramatically over the next decade thanks rapid growth of Asian economies, according to Knight Frank’s Wealth Report.

The company's forecasts suggest that number of persons with capital of $ 30 million or more will increase in the world by 43% within 10 years. The expected figure is much higher than the population’s growth rate for this period.

It is noted that number of super-rich people in Asia will double by 2026 and will exceed 88 thousand people. In China and India, number of super-rich people will increase by 140% and 150%, respectively.

source: bloomberg.com