Amancio Ortega is 2013’s biggest riser, having watched his fortune swell from $19.5 billion to $57 billion on account of a c.60 per cent stake in clothing retailer Inditex
Wealth managers will be rubbing their hands at news that there are a record 210 new billionaires on the Forbes list and that the average net worth of the 1426 luminaries has risen from $3.7 billion to $3.8 billion.
See the top ten wealthy at the bottom of the page
One client who won’t be changing advisers, however, is Amancio Ortega. The 76-year-old Spaniard is 2013’s biggest riser, having watched his fortune swell from $19.5 billion to $57 billion on account of a c.60 per cent stake in clothing retailer Inditex, owner of brand names from Zara to Stradivarius.
Related
Pictured left: Amanico Ortega: made $37.5bn in 2012
What will frustrate wealth managers is the paradox that world’s highest earners maintain the lowest of profiles. It is amusing to flick through Forbes’ website and note how many billionaires don’t have photos and, to be fair, most pedestrians would struggle to identify more than a couple of the names on a top 10 consisting of Carlos Slim Helu ($73bn), Bill Gates ($67bn), Amanico Ortega ($57bn), Warren Buffet ($53.5bn), Larry Ellison ($43bn), the Koch brothers ($34bn), Li Ka-shing ($31bn), Liliane Bettencourt ($30bn) and Bernard Arnault ($29bn).
The UK itself amounts for 37 names or 2.6% of the 1426 billionaires. Gerald Grosvenor leads the way at 89th position with $11.4bn, followed by the Reubens and the Hindujas at 103rd and 136th with $10.5bn and $8.3bn. The rest come from an array of professions, ranging from jewellery (Laurence Graff at $4.3bn) to vacuums (James Dyson at $4.4bn).
Pictured left: The Duke of Westminster: the UK’s richest man
Content from our partners
Little unites them – bar a feint overweight to financials and property – but age does appear to be a significant factor. A mere 8 of the 37 billionaires are under 60 (Farhard Moshiri, Alex Beard, Mark Coombs, Ayman Asfari, Charles Dunstone, Alan Howard, Xiu Li Hawken and David Harding) while only 3 are under 50; a stat that, combined with the fact that 35% of under 40s billionaires come from tech, reveals quite how far Silicon Roundabout has to go.
Pictured left: Alex Beard of Glencore: the UK’s youngest billionaire at age 45
Pictured below: The top ten wealthiest people in the world, according to Forbes
Read more on rich lists from Spear’s
Don’t miss out on the best of Spear’s articles – sign up to the Spear’s weekly newsletter
[related_companies]