Warren Buffett dethrones Gates, becomes world`s richest

Riding the surging price of Berkshire Hathaway stock, legendary investor Warren Buffett’s fortune swelled to $62 billion, up from $10 billion a year ago, making him the world’s richest person, according to Forbes’ annual list of billionaires.

He has overtaken software czar Bill Gates ($58 billion) as well as Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu ($60 billion). Gates is up $2 billion from a year ago, but would have been as rich or richer than Buffett, had Microsoft not made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! at the beginning of February.

Microsoft shares fell 15 per cent between January 31, the day before the company announced its bid for the search engine giant, and February 11, the day Forbes locked in stock prices for the 2008 World’s Billionaires list. More than half of Gates’ fortune is held outside of Microsoft shares. Mexican telecom tycoon Slim Helu fortune has risen $11 billion since last March.

Forbes released its annual list of billionaires on Wednesday evening. Among new comers are India’s youngest billionaire Sameer Gehlaut with a networth of $1.2 billion and Gautam Adani a net worth of $9.3 billion.

NRI steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani are at fourth, fifth and sixth positions, respectively.

K P Singh too made it to the top 10 by occupying the eighth position with a net worth of $30 billion. In terms of wealth created in the last one year, Anil Ambani has come on top, followed by his elder brother Mukesh Ambani. (See list in Top 15 Indian billionaires).

Forbes has put Mittal’s net worth at $45 billion, closely followed by Mukesh Ambani’s $43 billion and Anil Ambani’s $42 billion.

The other Indians who have made it to the Forbes list include Ravi and Sashi Ruia and Azim Premji, who have occupied the 43rd and 30th spot with net worth of $15 billion and $12.7 billion respectively.

The Forbes list also include Sunil Mittal and family with net worth $11.8 billion, Kumar Birla and Ramesh Chandra with $9.6 billion, Gautam Adani $9.3 billion, Savitri Jindal and family $8.2 billion, Anil Agarwal $6 billion and Adi Godrej and family $5.5 billion.