P.M. BRIEFING : Japanese Developer World’s Richest Man, Trump Off the List
A Japanese railway and real estate developer has earned the ranking of the world’s richest businessman for the fourth straight year, according to Forbes’ annual list of the world’s billionaires released today.
And American real estate tycoon Donald Trump, who suffered huge financial setbacks during the year, was dropped from the list.
With an estimated net worth of $16 billion, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi ranked first among 271 individuals and families worldwide whose personal net assets are worth more than $1 billion, Forbes said in its July 23 issue.
The United States led the list with 62 individual billionaires and 37 billionaire families, for a total of 99, the magazine said. Japan followed with 40 billionaire fortunes, and West Germany ranked a close third with 38, Forbes said.
Ranking second after Tsutsumi was another Japanese businessman, Taikichiro Mori, a former economics professor turned real estate developer, the magazine reported.
The highest-ranking American on the list was Wal-Mart Stores founder Sam Moore Walton and his family who, with a combined net worth of $13.3 billion, placed third. Coming in fourth was the Du Pont family, with a combined net worth of $10 billion.
Ranking fifth were two Swedish brothers, Hans and Gad Rausing, who control a packaging empire worth $9.6 billion, the magazine said.
John Werner Kluge, founder of Metromedia, continues to be the richest individual American billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $5.2 billion, Forbes said.
Other Americans earning a spot on the list were financier Warren Edward Buffett, publishers S. I. and Donald Newhouse and H. Ross Perot, founder of Electronic Data Systems. Other Americans on the list included real estate mogul Harry Helmsley, cable television maverick Ted Turner, Laurence and Preston Tisch of Loews Corp., takeover artist and head of Pan American World Airways Carl Icahn, publisher Rupert Murdoch and David Rockefeller.
