Bill Gates reclaims title as world’s richest

The surging price of Microsoft shares returned US tech tycoon Bill Gates back to the top of Forbes’s world’s billionaires list, with his $76bn beating out Mexico’s Carlos Slim’s $72bn.

The annual list, released yesterday, counted 1,645 men and women as billionaires, with an average wealth of $4.5bn and a collective wealth of $6.4tn, up $1tn from a year ago.

Gates, co-founder of the US software firm, showed his staying power at the top — the world’s richest man for 15 of the past 20 years, according to Forbes — despite spending recent years giving away large sums of money to global health and anti-poverty programmes.

Gates owns about 4.4% of Microsoft, making up less than 20% of his total fortune.

But the company’s share price has risen 25% over the past year, and, along with gains in other assets, he has added $7bn to his fortune since a year ago, according to Forbes.

Slim, with a hand in everything from telecommunications (America Movil) to mining, finance and industry (Grupo Carso), to retailing and real estate across the Americas region, was worth $1bn less than a year ago, hit in part by sagging markets in South America.

In third was Spain’s Amancio Ortega, whose pockets have filled with profits from fashion: his hugely successful Inditex garment empire, parent of popular chains Zara, Pull & Bear, and Bershka. More recently, Ortega heavily invested in real estate in Europe and the US; his worth was put at $64bn.

A familiar cast of mega-wealthy filled out the rest of the top ten: US investment guru Warren Buffett ($58.2bn); software group Oracle’s founder and chief executive Larry Ellison ($48bn); US industrialists and brothers Charles and David Koch (each with $40bn); Las Vegas casino king Sheldon Adelson ($38bn); Walmart heiress Christy Walton ($36.7bn) and her brother Jim Walton ($34.7bn).

Together the $507bn held by the top ten is larger than the entire size of the economy of Norway, or Belgium or Poland in 2012.