By Mona Chalabi
Eighty people hold the same amount of wealth as the world’s 3.6 billion poorest people, according to an analysis just released from Oxfam. The report from the global anti-poverty organization finds that since 2009, the wealth of those 80 richest has doubled in nominal terms — while the wealth of the poorest 50 percent of the world’s population has fallen.
To see how much wealth the richest 1 percent and the poorest 50 percent hold, Oxfam used research from Credit Suisse, a Swiss financial services company, and Forbes’s annual billionaires list. Oxfam then looked at how many of the world’s richest people would need to pool their resources to have as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent — and as of March 2014, it was just 80 people.
Four years earlier, 388 billionaires together held as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the world.
Thirty-five of the 80 richest people in the world are U.S. citizens, with combined wealth of $941 billion in 2014. Together in second place are Germany and Russia, with seven mega-rich individuals apiece. The entire list is dominated by one gender, though — 70 of the 80 richest people are men. And 68 of the people on the list are 50 or older.
If those 80 individuals were to bump into each on Svenborgia, what might they talk about? Retail could be a good conversation starter — 14 of the 80 got their wealth that way. Or they could discuss “extractives” (industries like oil, gas and mining, to which 11 of them owe their fortunes), finance (also 11 of them) or tech (10 of them).
There might be some quiet voices in the room, though, because 11 of the wealthiest people on the planet were simply born into their money (19 others inherited their wealth and then made it grow). The remaining 50 names on the list, according to Forbes, are self-made billionaires.
Oxfam notes that global wealth inequality is increasing while the rich get richer. If trends continue, the organization projects that the richest 1 percent of people will have more wealth than the remaining 99 percent by 2016.
Here’s the list of the 80 people with as much wealth as the world’s poorest 3.6 billion people:
RANK | NAME | 2014 WEALTH (BILLIONS) | COUNTRY | SELF-MADE? | SECTOR |
RANK | NAME | 2014 WEALTH (BILLIONS) | COUNTRY | SELF-MADE? | SECTOR |
1 | Bill Gates | $76 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
2 | Carlos Slim Helu | $72 | Mexico | ✓ | Telecom |
3 | Amancio Ortega | $64 | Spain | ✓ | Retail |
4 | Warren Buffett | $58 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
5 | Larry Ellison | $48 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
6 | Charles Koch | $40 | USA | Diversified | |
7 | David Koch | $40 | USA | Diversified | |
8 | Sheldon Adelson | $38 | USA | ✓ | Entertainment |
9 | Christy Walton | $37 | USA | Retail | |
10 | Jim Walton | $35 | USA | Retail | |
11 | Liliane Bettencourt | $35 | France | Product | |
12 | Stefan Persson | $34 | Sweden | Retail | |
13 | Alice Walton | $34 | USA | Retail | |
14 | S. Robson Walton | $34 | USA | Retail | |
15 | Bernard Arnault | $34 | France | Luxury | |
16 | Michael Bloomberg | $33 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
17 | Larry Page | $32 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
18 | Jeff Bezos | $32 | USA | ✓ | Retail |
19 | Sergey Brin | $32 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
20 | Li Ka-shing | $31 | Hong Kong | ✓ | Diversified |
21 | Mark Zuckerberg | $29 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
22 | Michele Ferrero | $27 | Italy | Food | |
23 | Aliko Dangote | $25 | Nigeria | ✓ | Commodities |
24 | Karl Albrecht | $25 | Germany | ✓ | Retail |
25 | Carl Icahn | $25 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
26 | George Soros | $23 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
27 | David Thomson | $23 | Canada | Media | |
28 | Lui Che Woo | $22 | Hong Kong | ✓ | Entertainment |
29 | Dieter Schwarz | $21 | Germany | Retail | |
30 | Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud | $20 | Saudi Arabia | ✓ | Finance |
31 | Forrest Mars Jr. | $20 | USA | Food | |
32 | Jacqueline Mars | $20 | USA | Food | |
33 | John Mars | $20 | USA | Food | |
34 | Jorge Paulo Lemann | $20 | Brazil | ✓ | Drinks |
35 | Lee Shau Kee | $20 | Hong Kong | ✓ | Diversified |
36 | Steve Ballmer | $19 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
37 | Theo Albrecht Jr. | $19 | Germany | Retail | |
38 | Leonardo Del Vecchio | $19 | Italy | ✓ | Luxury |
39 | Len Blavatnik | $19 | USA | ✓ | Diversified |
40 | Alisher Usmanov | $19 | Russia | ✓ | Extractives |
41 | Mukesh Ambani | $19 | India | Extractives | |
42 | Masayoshi Son | $18 | Japan | ✓ | Telecom |
43 | Michael Otto | $18 | Germany | Retail | |
44 | Phil Knight | $18 | USA | ✓ | Retail |
45 | Tadashi Yanai | $18 | Japan | ✓ | Retail |
46 | Gina Rinehart | $18 | Australia | Extractives | |
47 | Mikhail Fridman | $18 | Russia | ✓ | Extractives |
48 | Michael Dell | $18 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
49 | Susanne Klatten | $17 | Germany | Cars | |
50 | Abigail Johnson | $17 | USA | Finance | |
51 | Viktor Vekselberg | $17 | Russia | ✓ | Metals |
52 | Lakshmi Mittal | $17 | India | Metals | |
53 | Vladimir Lisin | $17 | Russia | ✓ | Transport |
54 | Cheng Yu-tung | $16 | Hong Kong | ✓ | Diversified |
55 | Joseph Safra | $16 | Brazil | ✓ | Finance |
56 | Paul Allen | $16 | USA | ✓ | Tech |
57 | Leonid Mikhelson | $16 | Russia | ✓ | Extractives |
58 | Anne Cox Chambers | $16 | USA | Media | |
59 | Francois Pinault | $16 | France | ✓ | Retail |
60 | Iris Fontbona | $16 | Chile | Extractives | |
61 | Azim Premji | $15 | India | Tech | |
62 | Mohammed Al Amoudi | $15 | Saudi Arabia | ✓ | Extractives |
63 | Gennady Timchenko | $15 | Russia | ✓ | Extractives |
64 | Wang Jianlin | $15 | China | ✓ | Real Estate |
65 | Charles Ergen | $15 | USA | ✓ | Telecom |
66 | Stefan Quandt | $15 | Germany | Cars | |
67 | Germán Larrea Mota Velasco | $15 | Mexico | Extractives | |
68 | Harold Hamm | $15 | USA | ✓ | Extractives |
69 | Ray Dalio | $14 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
70 | Donald Bren | $14 | USA | ✓ | Real Estate |
71 | Georg Schaeffler | $14 | Germany | Product | |
72 | Luis Carlos Sarmiento | $14 | Colombia | ✓ | Finance |
73 | Ronald Perelman | $14 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
74 | Laurene Powell Jobs | $14 | USA | Entertainment | |
75 | Serge Dassault | $14 | France | Aviation | |
76 | John Fredriksen | $14 | Cyprus | ✓ | Transport |
77 | Vagit Alekperov | $14 | Russia | ✓ | Extractives |
78 | John Paulson | $14 | USA | ✓ | Finance |
79 | Rupert Murdoch | $14 | USA | ✓ | Media |
80 | Ma Huateng | $13 | China | ✓ | Tech |
The Crimson Dining Room inside Castle Howard, York, Englan