While some of the world’s richest people
lost a sum of $182bn (N35.85tn) over the past week, Nigerian
billionaire, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, and 10 others made money amid
deepening global market rout.
Dangote, who is President of Dangote Group, posted a $79.2m (N15.6bn) gain from Thursday to Friday, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. He was one of six billionaires who saw their fortunes increase in 24 hours to Friday.
The world’s 400 richest people lost
$182bn last week from their collective fortunes as weak manufacturing
data from China and a rout in commodities sent global markets plunging.
Dangote is Africa’s richest man, with a net worth of $15.4bn, according to the Index.
The other three Africans on the Index
are South Africans: Nicky Oppenheimer formerly of the De Beers diamond
company (net worth $6.7bn) suffered a $27.9m loss between Thursday and
Friday; luxury goods magnate Johann Rupert (net worth $7bn) saw his
money shrink by $87m, and retailing baron Christo Wiese (net worth
$7bn), lost $220m over the same period.
The weekly drop for the Bloomberg
Billionaires Index, a group that includes Warren Buffett, Bill Gates
and Mark Zuckerberg, was the biggest since tracking of the expanded list
began in September 2014.
The combined net worth of the index
members fell by $76bn on Friday alone, when the Standard & Poor’s
500 Index of United States’ stocks ended its worst week since 2011.
“For them, that’s a fractional percentage, even though $182bn is a big number.
“A week like this feels really bad, but
when you take a step back, in a big picture view it’s not a disaster by
any means,” said John Collins, director of investment advisory at
Aspiriant, which oversees more than $8bn for high net-worth clients.
Friday’s losses put the world’s richest
400 into the red for the year to date. They’re now down $74bn in 2015,
with a collective net worth of $3.98tn.
The week’s largest setback in dollar
terms was experienced by Warren Buffett, who saw his fortune drop by
$3.6bn, as Berkshire Hathaway Inc. slipped more than five per cent. The
investor is the world’s third wealthiest person, with a fortune of
$63.4bn, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The slump in oil, which had its longest
weekly losing streak since 1986, amid signs of an extended supply glut,
contributed to $15.2bn in losses for the world’s wealthiest energy
billionaires.
Continental Resources Inc. Chairman, Harold Hamm, saw $895m, or nine per cent of his net worth, vanish last week.
The Chief Executive Officer, Glencore
Plc, a mining company, Ivan Glasenberg, lost $237m during the week, as
commodity prices slid to their lowest levels in 13 years.
Glencore reached a record low in London
on Friday, down more than 8 per cent from a week earlier, after the
trading house reported its profit sank 56 per cent in the first half of
the year. Glasenberg’s fortune has decreased more than 40 per cent in
2015, to $3.1bn.
China’s 26 wealthiest people, pummelled
by Hong Kong’s bear market and a weaker yen, lost $18.8bn during the
week. Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties Company was hit
hardest, losing $3.5bn.
Eleven billionaires added to their
fortunes, in spite of the market turmoil. The week’s biggest dollar
gainer was Sun Pharmaceuticals’ Dilip Shanghvi. The world’s 39th-richest
person became $467m wealthier, elevating his net worth to $18.9bn.
The Bloomberg Billionaires
Index takes measure of the world’s wealthiest people based on market and
economic changes and Bloomberg News reporting. Each net-worth figure is
updated every business day at 5:30 p.m. in New York and listed in US
dollars.
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