Billionaires Of The World

Roman Abramovich biography

2008-12-30T21:03:00.001-08:00

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (IPA: [rɐˈman ɐrˈkadʲjevʲɪtɕ ɐbrɐˈmovʲɪtɕ]; Russian: Рома́н Арка́дьевич Абрамо́вич; born on 24 October 1966 in Saratov, Russian SFSR, USSR) is a Russian billionaire and the main owner of private investment company Millhouse Capital, referred to as one of the Russian oligarchs. According to the 2007 Forbes magazine, as of 3 August 2007, he had a net worth of $18.7 billion,[1] and according to Russian Finance magazine, as of January 2007, his fortune was 551.0 billion rubles (roughly $23 billion).[2] He was considered to be the second richest person currently living within the United Kingdom in 2008.[3]

The stress on his family name is often placed on the second syllable (Abrámovich) when pronounced in English, whereas the original Russian name is stressed on the third (Abramóvich).

In Russia, Abramovich is prominent as the governor of Chukotka, a post to which he was elected in 2000, and has spent over $1 billion on good causes in the region,[4] which now has one of the highest birth rates in Russia.[5]. He is most famous outside Russia as the owner of Chelsea Football Club, an English Premiership football team, and for his wider involvement in European football. Despite his high profile around the world, Abramovich makes virtually no public statements about his activities.

In 2003 Roman Abramovich was named Person of the Year by Expert, a Russian business magazine. He shared this title with Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Richard Li biography

2008-12-23T20:58:00.001-08:00

Richard Li Tzar Kai (traditional Chinese: 李澤楷; simplified Chinese: 李泽楷; pinyin: Lǐ Zékǎi) was born on 8 November 1966 in Hong Kong, the younger son of successful entrepreneur Li Ka-Shing and brother of Victor Li. He is chairman and executive director of PCCW Limited and Pacific Century Group in Hong Kong. He is also chairman of Singapore-based Pacific Century Regional Developments Limited and the non-executive director of the Bank of East Asia.

Rather than enter into his father's business, Richard Li entered into the media business . He cut his deal-making teeth building STAR TV into Asia's first satellite broadcasting service with a loan from his father,[citation needed] Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing. He then sold it to global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for US$950 million in 1995 and turned his attention to the Internet.

He sparked a frenzied buying spree for Hong Kong technology stocks in April 1999 when he announced he would turn sleepy telecommunications equipment distributor "Tricom Holdings" into Asia's premier Internet company under the name PCCW. The stock had recorded a 1,286 percent gain in a single day.[citation needed]

He bought Cable & Wireless HKT in 2000. On August 2000, Li was seen as a saviour when his flagship PCCW outbid rival Singapore Telecommunications for HKT in a US$28.5 billion deal, Asia's largest corporate takeover, he was dubbed "Superboy" (小小超) by the local media.[citation needed] However, as local euphoria surrounding HKT's takeover waned and global tech and telecom shares tanked, shareholders' praise soon turned to criticism.[citation needed]

Li suffered embarrassment in March 2001 when a newspaper [1] revealed he attended but did not finish his degree at California's Stanford University, contrary to PCCW's claims.

He endured another setback on February 2003 when PCCW made an approach to acquire Britain's Cable & Wireless, which was rebuffed. PCCW later denied making a formal offer, which has led to an investigation by the Hong Kong stock exchange.[citation needed] The company was later cleared mainly due to insufficiency of evidence.

Li gave up his spot as PCCW's chief executive officer on July 25, 2003 but remains as chairman and executive director. Jack So, who left his chairman position at Hong Kong subway operator MTR Corp, took up the job of group managing director of PCCW.

In August 2006 Li paid HKD$280 million for a 50% stake in Chinese business paper Hong Kong Economic Journal.[citation needed] Li promised no changes to the editorial content nor layoffs in the short term.[citation needed]

Ted Turner biography

2008-12-16T20:54:00.001-08:00

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938[2]) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is best known as the founder of the cable television network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition to CNN, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. As a philanthropist, he is well known for his $1 billion gift to support UN causes, which created The United Nations Foundation, a public charity that builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world's most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN through advocacy, public outreach, and grant making. Turner serves as the Chairman of the board of directors for the foundation.[3]

Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business which he took over at the age of 24 after his father's suicide.[4] The billboard business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, was worth approximately $1 million when Turner took it over in 1963. Purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the assemblage of the Turner Broadcasting System. His Cable News Network revolutionized news media, coming to the forefront covering the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Using his media empire for publicity, Turner turned the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular franchise and launched the charitable Goodwill Games.

Turner's penchant for making controversial statements has earned him the nickname "The Mouth of the South".[5] Turner was also in the news for his much publicized marriage to actress and political activist Jane Fonda, as well as their subsequent divorce.

In addition to his charitable donations, Turner has devoted his assets to a blend of environmentalism and capitalism, owning more land than any other American, and using much of that land for ranches as part of his plan to re-popularize bison meat (for his Ted's Montana Grill chain), in the process amassing the largest herd in the world. He also created the environmental education/action animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers. On April 26, 2007 Ted Turner was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.

Li Ka-shing biography

2008-12-09T20:42:00.001-08:00

Sir Li Ka-shing, GBM, KBE (simplified Chinese: 李嘉诚; traditional Chinese: 李嘉誠; pinyin: Lǐ Jiāchéng, Jyutping: Lei5 Gaa1-sing4, Li2 Gia1-sêng5 gdr, born July 29, 1928[2]), is a wealthy businessman from Hong Kong. He is the richest person of Chinese descent in the world, one of the richest and most influential investors in Asia, and the eleventh richest man in the world according to Forbes with an estimated wealth of $26.5 billion on February 11, 2008.[3] Presently, he is the Chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) and Cheung Kong Holdings in Hong Kong.

Considered one of the most powerful figures in Asia, Li was named "Asia's Most Powerful Man" by Asiaweek in 2001. Forbes Magazine and the Forbes family honored Li Ka-shing with the first ever "Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award" on September 5, 2006, in Singapore.[4] In spite of his wealth, Li has a reputation for leading a no-frills lifestyle, and is known to wear simple black dress shoes and an inexpensive Seiko wristwatch. Li is also regarded as one of Asia's most generous philanthropists, donating over US$1 billion to date to charity and other various philanthropic causes. [5]

Li is often referred to as "Superman" in Hong Kong because of his business prowess. His peers in Hong Kong include Lee Shau Kee of the Henderson Land Development, New World Development's Cheng Yu-tung, Kwok family of Sun Hung Kai Properties, and Henry Fok Ying-tung, among others.

Li Ka-shing was born in Chaozhou in the Guangdong Province, China in 1928. In 1940 the Li family fled to Hong Kong to avoid the turmoils in China.[6] Li's family stayed at the home of his wealthy uncle. The arrogance of Li's uncle with his immense wealth ignited Li's determination to make a place for himself in the world.

Li's father died in Hong Kong. Shouldering the responsibility of looking after the livelihood of the family, Li was forced to leave school before the age of 15 and found a job in a plastics trading company where he labored 16 hours a day. By 1950, his hard work, prudence and his pursuit of excellence had enabled him to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries. From manufacturing plastics, Li led and developed his company into a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong that was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972. Cheung Kong continued to expand by acquiring Hutchison Whampoa and Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited in 1979 and 1985 respectively.[7]
Contents

Mark Zuckerberg biography

2008-12-02T20:34:00.001-08:00

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American entrepreneur. As a Harvard student he founded the online social networking website Facebook with the help of fellow Harvard student and computer science major Andrew McCollum as well as roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. He now serves as Facebook's CEO. In 2008, [2] Forbes Magazine named him as "the world's youngest self-made billionaire" with a theoretical net worth of US $1.5 billion[3], though the validity of this label has also been met with controversy.[4]

Mark Zuckerberg was born to a Jewish-American family and raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy where he was a resident of Browning House and was recruited by both Microsoft and AOL in his senior year due to a hacking project. Instead, he opted to attend Harvard University. [5]

Steve Ballmer biography

2008-11-25T20:31:00.001-08:00

Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000.[1] Ballmer is the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a billionaire in U.S. dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was neither a founder nor a relative of a founder. In Forbes 2008 World's Richest People ranking, Ballmer was ranked the 43rd richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $15 billion.

On October 2, 2006, Ballmer was awarded honorary citizenship of Lausen, Switzerland. His father, Frederick Ballmer, who emigrated to the US at the age of 23 as "Hans Friedrich Balmer", was a citizen of the same municipality.[2] His father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Co. In 1990 Ballmer married Connie Snyder, on Microsoft's PR team at the Waggener Group in the '80s. They have two sons.

Steve Ballmer was born March 24, 1956 and grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan to a Swiss father and a Jewish-American mother. In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a high school, and now sits on its board of directors.[3] In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University [4] with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. He then worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, the current CEO of General Electric.[5] In 1980, he dropped out from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.[6]

Michael Bloomberg biography

2008-11-18T20:22:00.001-08:00

Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and the Mayor of New York City. He gained his wealth as the founder of financial news and data company Bloomberg L.P. Although a lifelong Democrat, he ran on the Republican ballot and was elected mayor in 2001, then reelected to a second term in 2005.

He was frequently mentioned as a possible independent candidate for the 2008 presidential election and fueled that speculation when he left the Republican Party in June 2007.[3] He repeatedly denied any plans to run and said the news media had concocted rumors of his possible presidential bid. He ended speculation on the matter in a February 2008 New York Times Op-Ed piece where he wrote "I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president."[4] There is also much speculation that he will run as a vice-presidential candidate. [5]

Bloomberg was born to a Jewish family at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton on February 14, 1942. His father, William Henry Bloomberg, born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on January 19, 1906, was the son of Alexander "Elick" Bloomberg, a Russian Jewish immigrant and a real estate agent. His mother, Charlotte (Rubens) Bloomberg, born January 3, 1909 in New Jersey, was the daughter of a Russian immigrant and a New Jersey-born mother. She is still alive and reported to be in very good health for her age.[6] The family lived in the Boston neighborhood of Allston until Bloomberg was two years old; they subsequently moved to Atherton Road, in Brookline, Massachusetts for the next two years, and finally settled in Medford, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb, where Bloomberg lived until after he graduated college. His younger sister, Marjorie Tiven, is Commissioner of the New York City Commission for the United Nations, Consular Corps and Protocol.

Bloomberg attended Johns Hopkins University, where he joined Phi Kappa Psi, and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in electrical engineering. Later he received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School. He also achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.[7][8]

Bloomberg married Yorkshire-born Susan Brown in 1975. Their marriage produced two daughters, Emma (b. ca. 1979) and Georgina (b. 1983), who were featured on Born Rich, a documentary film about the children of the extremely wealthy. Georgina was romantically linked in 2007 with Cian O'Connor, the Irish showjumper whose 2004 Olympic gold medal was withdrawn.[9]Bloomberg divorced Brown in 1993 following 18 years of marriage. He is currently seeing former New York state banking superintendent Diana Taylor.

Sam Walton biography

2008-11-11T20:19:00.001-08:00

Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992), was an American businessman and entrepreneur born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma who founded two American retailers Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. He was the patriarch of the Walton family, one of the richest families in the world.

Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee Walton near Kingfisher, Oklahoma on March 29, 1918. There, he lived with his parents on their farm until 1923. Sam's father decided farming did not generate enough income on which to raise a family, so he decided to go back to a previous profession of a mortgage man. So he and his family (now with another son, James born in 1921) moved from Oklahoma to Missouri. There they moved from one small town to another for several years. While attending 8th grade in Shelbina, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state's history.[1] In adult life, Walton became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America.[2]

Walton excelled physically in high school, playing basketball and football as starting quarterback for Columbia's David H. Hickman High School in 1935, when they won the state title. While at Hickman, he also served as vice president of the student body in his junior year and as president in his senior year. He performed well enough academically to become an honors student.

Growing up during the Great Depression, Walton had numerous chores to help make financial ends meet for his family. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver newspapers on a paper route. Upon graduating, he was voted "Most Versatile Boy."

After high school, Walton decided to attend college, hoping to find a better way to help support his family. He attended the University of Missouri and majored in economics and was an ROTC officer. During this time, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals. Also during his time in college, Walton joined the estimable Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men. Upon graduating, he was voted "permanent president" of the class. He was also a member of the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi.

Walton joined JCPenney as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa three days after graduating from college. This position earned him $75 a month. He resigned in 1942 in anticipation of being inducted into the military for service in World War II. In the meantime, he worked at a DuPont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. There he met his future wife, Helen Robson, in April 1942. She and Sam were married February 14, 1943.

Soon afterwards, Walton joined the military in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps, supervising security at aircraft plants and prisoner of war camps. In this position he served in the continental United States. He eventually reached the rank of Captain.

James "Bud" Walton biography

2008-11-04T20:16:00.001-08:00

James Lawrence "Bud" Walton (December 20, 1921 – March 21, 1995) was the younger brother of Sam Walton and cofounder of Wal-Mart.

Born in 1921, Walton went to Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri and to the Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. During World War II, he served as a Navy pilot. Like his brother, he went subsequently into the retail business working in the Ben Franklin Stores franchise system. His first store was opened in Versailles, Missouri. In 1962, he and Sam Walton co-founded Wal-Mart. He died on March 21, 1995 in Miami, Florida after surgery for an aneurysm.

Bud Walton had been married to Audrey Walton and they had two daughters, Ann Walton Kroenke, and Nancy Walton Laurie.

The Bud Walton Arena on the campus of the University of Arkansas is named after him.

He worked on a farm in his younger years.

Helen Walton biography

2008-10-28T21:04:00.001-07:00

Helen Robson Kemper Walton (December 3, 1919 — April 19, 2007) was the wife of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. She was the eleventh richest American and at one point the richest woman in the world. Helen died with an estimated net worth of $16.4 billion that will pass to charity over the next few years.

Helen was the valedictorian of her high school class in Claremore, Oklahoma and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma at Norman with a degree in business. She was the daughter of L.S. Robson, a prosperous banker and rancher. She and Sam were married February 14, 1943.

Sam Walton (d. 1992) left his ownership in Wal-Mart to his wife and their four children, S. Robson Walton (Rob), John T. Walton (d. 2005), Jim Walton, and Alice Walton. Rob Walton chairs the board of directors of Wal-Mart, on which John served until his death. The others are not directly involved in the company except through their voting power as shareholders.

Lawrence "Larry" Ellison biography

2008-10-21T20:57:00.001-07:00

Lawrence "Larry" Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, a major enterprise software company. He is currently listed on Forbes list of billionaires as the 14th richest person in the world. [1]

Ellison was born in New York City to Florence Spellman, a 19-year-old unwed Jewish mother. At his mother's request, he was given to his mother's aunt and uncle in Chicago to raise. Lillian Spellman Ellison and Louis Ellison adopted him when he was nine months old. Ellison did not learn the name of his mother or meet her until he was 48; the identity of his father is unknown.

The Ellison home was a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, populated mostly with lower middle class Jews. Ellison remembers his adoptive mother as warm and loving, in contrast to his austere, unsupportive, and often distant adoptive father, a Russian Jew from the Crimea who adopted the name Ellison to honor his point of entry into the USA, Ellis Island, as well as to conceal his Jewish ancestry. Louis was a modest government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression.

Ellison was a bright but inattentive student. He left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the end of his second year, after not taking his final exams because his adoptive mother had just died. After spending a summer in Northern California where he lived with his friend Chuck Weiss, he attended the University of Chicago for one term, where he first encountered computer programming. At 20 years of age, he moved to northern California permanently.

Karl and Theo Albrecht biography

2008-10-14T20:54:00.001-07:00

Karl Hans Albrecht (born 20 February 1920) is a German entrepreneur who founded the discount supermarket chain, Aldi, with his brother Theo. He is among the richest men in the world, with an estimated net worth of $27.0 billion ([1]2007). Albrecht is the wealthiest man in Germany.

Karl and Theo Albrecht were raised in modest circumstances in Essen. Their father was employed as a miner and later as a baker's assistant. Their mother had a small grocery store in the worker's quarter of Schonnebeck. Theo completed an apprenticeship in his mother's store, while Karl worked in a delicatessen. Karl also served in the German Army during World War II. After the end of World War II, the brothers took over their mother's business (1946). The first Aldi (Albrecht-Discount) was opened in 1961.

Aldi's operations were later divided between the brothers, with Karl taking control of the more profitable Aldi Süd (South), and Theo managing Aldi Nord (North).

Because Karl Albrecht has withdrawn himself from public life, little is known about him. He is married, and Forbes magazine reports that he has two children, neither of whom are employed by Aldi. Both Albrecht brothers reportedly live today in Essen, Germany. He is a fan of golf, and plays at his personal golf course, the Öschberghof, which he built in 1976. He also raises orchids.

In 1994, Karl Albrecht removed himself from the daily operations of Aldi Süd and took the position of chairman of the board. At the beginning of 2002, he also relinquished this position, thereby completely ceding control of the firm. Today, the business is no longer run by any of Karl Albrecht's family members.

Paul Allen biography

2008-10-07T20:51:00.001-07:00

Paul Gardner Allen (born January 21, 1953) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Allen regularly appears on lists of the richest people in the world. As of September 2007, Forbes ranks him as the eleventh richest American, worth an estimated $16.8 billion.[2]

He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which is his private asset management company, and is chairman of Charter Communications. Allen also has a multibillion dollar investment portfolio which includes large stakes in DreamWorks Animation SKG, Digeo, real estate holdings, and more than 40 other technology, media, and content companies. Allen also owns three professional sports teams: the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association, and the Seattle Sounders FC franchise in Major League Soccer that will begin playing in the 2009 season.[3][4][5]

Paul Gardner Allen was born in Seattle, Washington, to parents Kenneth S. Allen, an associate director of the University of Washington libraries, and Faye G. Allen, in January 21, 1953.[6] Allen attended Lakeside School, a private school in Seattle, and befriended Bill Gates, who was two years his junior but shared a common enthusiasm for computers.[7] They used Lakeside's teletype terminal to develop their programming skills on several time-sharing computer systems.[8] After graduation Allen attended Washington State University and was an active member in Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity.[8] He dropped out after two years in order to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston, which placed him near his old friend again.[8] Allen later convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard University in order to create Microsoft.[7]

Warren Buffett biography

2008-09-30T20:29:00.001-07:00

Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American investor, businessman and philanthropist. He is regarded as one of the world's greatest stock market investors, and is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.[3] With an estimated net worth of around US$62 billion,[4] he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world as of February 11, 2008.[5]

Often called the "Oracle of Omaha,"[6] Buffett is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth.[7] His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000, which is small compared to senior executive remuneration in other comparable companies,[8] and when he spent $9.7 million of Berkshire's funds on a business jet in 1989, he jokingly named it "The Indefensible" because of his past criticisms of such purchases by other CEOs.[9] He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at around $700,000.[10]

Buffett is also a noted philanthropist. In 2006, he announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[11] In 2007, he was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in The World.[12] He also serves as a member of the board of trustees at Grinnell College.[13]

Bill Gates biography

2008-09-23T19:57:00.001-07:00

William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955),[2] is an American business magnate, philanthropist, the world's third richest man (as of 2008),[1] and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the individual shareholder with the most shares, with more than 9 percent of the common stock.[3]

Gates was born in Seattle, Washington and excelled in school early on. He enrolled at Harvard College in 1973, where he met Steve Ballmer, who would later become CEO of Microsoft. After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems and provided them with the Altair BASIC, and thus Microsoft was formed. This led to a partnership with IBM that required Microsoft to make the BASIC interpreter for the IBM PC. Later on, Gates struck another deal with IBM, allowing IBM to package Microsoft's PC-DOS software with IBM's personal computers in exchange for a fee paid to Microsoft for every computer sold. This deal established Microsoft as a major player in the software industry.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a large number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.[4][5] In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Billionaire Unveils Exclusive New Course

2008-09-16T19:49:00.001-07:00

The chairman, president and CEO of Little Rock's Stephens Inc. has opened up his Alotian Golf Club. Warren Stephens, a 47-year-old billionaire and son of former Augusta National Golf Club chairman, Jack Stephens, unveiled his 7,400-yard golf course to members on September 4, 2004. The 300-acre layout occupies a panoramic site overlooking Lake Maumelle in Pulaski County, Ark. Vistas also incorporate Ouachita Mountain ridges.

Designed by Tom Fazio, the course on the western outskirts of Little Rock cost $18 million to build. It fills a quarter of a 1,200-acre parcel on the south side of Highway 10 that Stephens purchased from Deltic Timber Corp. in December 2001. In addition to an immaculately tended track, the club features an 11-acre state-of-the-art driving range and practice facility, and a 25,000-square-foot clubhouse that is slated to open around Christmas.

The club's unusual name derives from a group of wayfaring golfers – including Stephens, also a member of Augusta National – who set out to play the best courses in America. The trips became known as the "America's Lights Out Tour" (ALOT). Over time, members began calling themselves Alotians.

Stephens looked at several options when evaluating names for his club. "We thought about the name Golf Club of Arkansas, but that sounded way too serious," he told reporter George Waldon of Arkansas Business. "This is a fun place, and I hope, a place that is not stuffy, a place where you can enjoy the company of fellow golfers."

Stephens spared no expense with the course. Each green features an underground system capable of cooling or warming the bentgrass roots to a 10-degree differential with the air temperature. During Arkansas' hot summers, the system augments the electric fans that circulate air over the greens.

A network of lakes – the largest of which is 28 acres in size – supplies irrigation water to the golf course and surrounding plants. The lakes also provide a steady flow of running water in the creeks, a sound that Stephens loves.

Stephens invited a select group of in- and out-of-state members to join Alotian. The non-equity memberships run into the six figures. In comments to Waldon, Stephens said he likens the club's organizational structure as a "benevolent dictatorship." There will be no committees that are often found haggling and playing politics at many private clubs. There will also be no tennis courts or swimming pools. Unlike Augusta National, which famously has no women members, Alotian's new clubhouse will contain a ladies' locker room.

Fazio fashioned a course with generous fairways and merciful rough. To reach that goal, a whopping 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt were moved while shaping the layout. "Golf is a game where you better enjoy it no matter how well you play," Stephens said. The 10-handicapper added, "I wanted a course that is fun to play, not frustrating. If you want to play from the back tees, you can be frustrated."

With his considerable financial resources, Stephens could have built his dream golf course anywhere. But it only made sense to build it close to Little Rock. "I wouldn't want to do it anywhere else," he told Waldon. "This is home. I guess it never occurred to me to do it somewhere else."

Though his course has only been open for a short time, Stephens, during an August round, shot the track's first-ever hole-in-one. The ace was the second for Alotian's founder, and the first since he was 13 years old at a sports camp in Virginia. Asked which was his most memorable hole-in-one, Stephens replied, "I'd have to say the one here. I didn't see the first one go in the hole, but I did see the one out here."

Billionaire boosts Kremlin's oil reserves

2008-09-09T19:45:00.001-07:00

Russia's state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom is buying Sibneft, the country's fifth-largest oil company, for $US13.09 billion ($17.25 billion), further extending the Kremlin's control of major oil producers here.

Gazprom and Millhouse Capital, the holding company of the billionaire Roman Abramovich, jointly announced on Wednesday the sale of a 72.6 per cent stake in Sibneft. Gazprom already held a 3 per cent stake in Sibneft through its banking arm. Another 20 per cent of Sibneft stock is tied up in arbitration in London after a failed merger with the Yukos oil company.

The purchase price values Sibneft, which pumps about 650,000 barrels of oil a day, at $US18.02 billion.

The deal, expected to be approved by Gazprom's board next month, effectively nationalises Sibneft at a time when global supply remains tight.

It also realises Gazprom's ambitions to become a global energy player capable of supplying even remote markets like the US.

The sale brings full circle the personal saga of one of the world's youngest billionaires. Mr Abramovich, 38, the owner of Chelsea football club in Britain, bought Sibneft for about $US100 million in a 1995 privatisation. Now, for the first time, one of Russia's oligarchs of the 1990s has successfully cashed out his Russian holdings.

Sibneft shares fell 9 per cent on the announcement; Gazprom shares rose 0.8 per cent.

That seems to dispel speculation that Mr Abramovich was forced to sell to Gazprom.

Gazprom was "paying a full price relative to the value of other Russian oil assets", said Christopher Weafer, chief analyst at Alfa Bank.

Mr Abramovich, who lives most of the time in London, had already been selling his assets in Russia, among them stakes in Russian Aluminum, the country's largest such company, and in the state airline, Aeroflot.

With the Sibneft sale, however, he walks away with a huge windfall. He has been tight-lipped about his plans. "Abramovich has done all he can in business," said Alexei Venediktov, a Moscow radio commentator and friend.

"He's cashing out. Now maybe he'll invest in his family and his many loved ones' future."

The youngest and most reclusive of the Russian oligarchs, Mr Abramovich was close to the former president, Boris Yeltsin, in the late 1990s and made crucial decisions, including supporting Vladimir Putin as Mr Yeltsin's successor. Later, as others fell out with Mr Putin, Mr Abramovich seemed to remain above the fray. Russian media reported that Sibneft quietly paid $US350 million to settle a back tax claim in April.

The purchase would put a third of the country's oil production - and most of its energy resources when natural gas is included - under state control. It propels Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer, further into the oil business and adds to its already huge reserves, mostly in Siberia and the Russian Arctic.

Billionaire to Fund Free Net U

2008-09-02T19:41:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON -- Internet software billionaire Michael Saylor plans to donate $100 million to launch a free online university that could reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide, his company said on Wednesday.

MicroStrategy spokesman Michael Quint said Saylor would announce his cyber university plans at a philanthropy conference in Washington on Thursday. America Online chairman and chief executive officer Steve Case will also be at the meeting.

"The idea is to create a higher learning center online for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, which will be classified as top class," Quint said. "It's fairly hazy at the moment as to how this will work and the university is in its infancy stage."

In an interview with The Washington Post published on Wednesday, Saylor said he anticipated online courses that would include lectures from the world's "geniuses and leaders." The interviews would be videotaped at a studio to be built in the Washington area in the coming months.

Saylor said he did not plan to offer payment to those who lectured online, pointing out that people lined up to get onto television shows.

"I think they'll fight to get into the studio. It gives a great calculus teacher the chance to teach 100 million people," he said.

The Post said that eventually, Saylor wanted his nonprofit university to become a "cyber Library of Congress."

"Done right, this will impact the lives of millions of people forever. Done wrong, it's just noise in a can," said Saylor.

The Post said Saylor owned 44 million shares of software marketer MicroStrategy, with a paper value of about $13 billion. He planned initially to donate $100 million to the cyber university charity.

"I'll contribute more over time until it's done," he told the Post. "Other philanthropists might want to come on board. If not, I'll do it myself," he added.

Saylor is the latest hi-tech billionaire to donate some of his wealth to educational charities. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has the wealthiest charity in his class and has pledged more than $1 billion in scholarships to minorities.

Saylor told the Post the idea to have an online university came to him over the New Year's holiday when he was sailing a yacht off St. Bart's in the Caribbean.

Billionaire Entrepreneur Dreams of Inhaled Insulin

2008-08-26T19:38:00.001-07:00

The monumental failure of Pfizer's Exubera hasn't changed the mind of an ornery, 82-year-old billionaire named Al Mann, who is staking much of his personal fortune on another try at making inhaled insulin a reality.

Loyal Health Blog readers will recall that Alfred E. Mann's Advanced Bionics recently took a big payout to end a troubled tie-up with Boston Scientific. That's just one in a string of companies the guy has started over the past several decades. (See "Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur," an interview by Health Affairs.)

The inhaled insulin's the work of the humbly named MannKind Corp. So far, Mann (pictured) has invested $566 million in MannKind and agreed to lend it an additional $350 million, this morning's NYT reports. (Forbes puts his net worth at $2.2 billion.)

MannKind has spent some $700 million on its inhalable insulin, called Technosphere, according to the NYT. The device used to deliver the insulin is about the size of a modern cell phone, rather smaller than the Exubera device, which was criticized roundly as being bulky. Boosters of the product also say it works faster and doesn't linger as long as other forms of insulin, which could be beneficial.

Billionaire owner slips to 25th on the rich list

2008-08-19T19:30:00.001-07:00

THE owner of the strike-hit Grangemouth refinery, Ineos chemicals billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, has plummeted from 10th to 25th on the Sunday Times Rich List published today.
Higher energy costs and more competition from the Middle East resulted in Ratcliffe falling 15 places on last year's position.

The former chemical engineer has been described as "the chemical industry's answer to Lakshmi Mittal", Britain's richest man, as well as the UK's "most private billionaire".

He has succeeded in maintaining a low profile until recently, with his name meaning little to most motorists.

His estimated fortune last year was £3.3bn. He took over BP's Grangemouth plant in 2006 for $9bn (£4.54bn).

The 54-year-old began his career working for Esso Petroleum and Courtaulds, before joining the venture capital firm Advent International. In 1992, he left Advent and led a buy-out of an earlier offshoot of BP, its speciality chemicals division, which became Inspec. He then acquired Ineos from Inspec in a £90.5m deal in 1998.

A series of bold takeovers followed and he bought chunks of ICI, Dow and Degussa. The quiet family man, based in Southampton, has admitted he was "surprised" at the speed of the group's rise.

International Coal shareholders re-elect billionaire, CEO

2008-08-12T19:26:00.001-07:00

SCOTT DEPOT, W.Va. (AP) - International Coal Group shareholders have re-elected billionaire investor Wilbur Ross and Chief Executive Ben Hatfield to the mine operator's board.

ICG says shareholders also re-elected Wendy Teramoto at Wednesday's meeting in New York. All will serve three more years as directors. Ross' investment company, W.L. Ross & Co., owns approximately 24.5 million shares, or slightly more than 16 percent, of ICG and is the company's largest shareholder.

Based in Scott Depot, ICG has 12 mining complexes and controls approximately 960 million tons of coal reserves in Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia. ICG's stock fell 47 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $9.65.

The McCaw Mystery; Billionaire, 45, Seeks A Future. No Hurry.

2008-08-05T18:52:00.001-07:00

Craig O. McCaw, who became both a billionaire and unemployed when he sold his cellular telephone company in September to the AT&T Corporation, says he is browsing for new ventures but still does not know what to do with the rest of his life.

Mr. McCaw, who is 45, caused a stir last week by applying to bid in the Federal Communications Commission's December auction of new licenses for wireless telephone and data services.

Speculation began almost immediately. Did the founder of McCaw Cellular Communications plan to compete against his old company? Did he have some radically new idea for using radio frequencies?

Maybe, maybe not. "People shouldn't believe that, just because I got a catalogue from Christies, it means I'm going buy anything," Mr. McCaw said in his first public comment on the issue this week.

"I'm really doing a lot of soul-searching," he said. "Is this going to be embarrassing? Is this going to cause trouble? Do I need to do all this at this point in my life?"

Mr. McCaw has plenty of time -- not to mention money -- on his hands. He was not asked to take an executive role at AT&T when he sold McCaw Cellular, and he announced two weeks ago that he would not serve on AT&T's board. The entrepreneur, who is now AT&T's's biggest shareholder, said he wanted to avoid conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCaw has assembled about a half-dozen associates around him, and he clearly does not plan to retire. He also made it clear that he did not want to start building another cellular telephone company, and that he might be looking for specific opportunities in certain regions of the country.

Even though he is required to put up more than $50 million in earnest money to bid in the auctions for so-called personal communication services, Mr. McCaw said he wanted to keep his options open. "I haven't got a plan," he said.

Instead, he said, he simply told his lawyers to file for permission to bid on every region in which AT&T would not want to bid.

"If the truth be known," he said, "I haven't got a clue."

Blair pushed through deal for Indian billionaire who gave Labour £125,000

2008-07-29T18:28:00.001-07:00

TONY BLAIR intervened to help an Indian billionaire buy a giant Romanian steel company a month after the tycoon donated £125,000 to the Labour Party, The Telegraph can reveal.

In an extraordinary letter, Mr Blair told Romania's prime minister that selling his biggest state-owned enterprise to Lakshmi Mittal, one of the world's richest men, would enhance the country's chances of joining the European Union.

Mr Blair later told MPs that Mr Mittal's company was British. In fact, LNM Holdings is based in a Caribbean tax haven. It operates almost entirely overseas and competes against British steelmakers that have shed 6,000 jobs in the past year.

The disclosures are an acute embarrassment to the Prime Minister following a series of allegations that the Government favoured firms that gave to Labour, including the affair of the £1 million Bernie Ecclestone donation, revealed by The Telegraph in 1997.

Idaho Potato King J.R. Simplot Dead at 99

2008-07-22T18:21:00.001-07:00

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg says Idaho frozen food magnate J.R. Simplot died Sunday in his Boise. He was 99.

Sonnenberg says Simplot died of natural causes. In the 1950s, Simplot's Caldwell-based potato business developed the first frozen french fry, which became a staple of fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and others.

Simplot parlayed the operation into an estimated at $3.6 billion fortune, according to Forbes Magazine.

In 2004, Simplot donated his 7,000 square foot mansion to the state for use as a governor's mansion. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, his former son-in-law and one-time company executive chose not to move into the home.

A History Entwined:
J.R. Simplot and the Simplot Company

J.R. 'Jack' Simplot began his colorful career at the age of 14 when he quit school and went into business on his own in 1923, near the small farming community of Declo, Idaho.

Jack poured seemingly boundless energy into many endeavors. By the early years of World War II, the Simplot Company had become the largest shipper of fresh potatoes in the country and was selling millions of pounds of dehydrated onions and potatoes to the military.

When wartime shortages made it difficult to buy fertilizer, Jack built a manufacturing plant in Pocatello, Idaho, and produced his own. That kind of ingenuity and determination continued during the early 1950s as the Simplot Company created and marketed the first commercially viable frozen french fries in the world.

Throughout his business career, he has blended a gambler's intuition with a businessman's judgment and common sense. Jack and his wife, Esther Becker Simplot, make their home in Boise, not far from his company's headquarters and a little more than 100 miles from the farm where he was raised. Jack has one daughter, Gay Simplot, and two sons, Don and Scott. Another son, Richard, died in 1993.

Jack has been honored by the World Potato Congress and the Idaho Potato Hall of Fame for his contributions to the industry, and has been recognized by numerous organizations for his achievements in business and financial support of education, the performing arts, and many communities.

Although Jack Simplot will remain forever fixed as the founder, leader and inspiration of the Simplot Company, it is equally true that scores of dedicated employees contributed mightily to the success of the company.

Governor Otter released the following statement:

"J.R. Simplot was a wonderful man and a great mentor who embodied what Idaho is all about. His love of family, his appreciation of America, his work ethic and his devotion to making this a better world through the free enterprise system all are values to which Idaho aspires. He had a huge impact on my life for over 30 years, and I shall miss him."

Billionaire James Sorenson leaves his fortune to charity

2008-07-15T18:14:00.001-07:00

The family of Utah inventor and billionaire philanthropist James LeVoy Sorenson said today that he willed his entire personal fortune to charity.

Sorenson died of cancer last month at age 86.

Last year, Forbes Magazine estimated his wealth to be approximately $4.5 billion.

Sorenson was known for his numerous medical inventions and successful business endeavors, in addition to his dedication to charitable causes. His son, James Lee Sorenson, said his father had talked about leaving his vast fortune behind to help various worthy causes.

"Over time, particularly the last 10 to 20 years having been successful, he asked himself, 'What is it that I can do with my wealth?' And he came to this conclusion."

James Lee Sorenson said the Sorenson Legacy Foundation will administer and choose which deserving organizations will receive gifts from his father's estate. Previous beneficiaries of gifts from the foundation have included Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a college for deaf and hard of hearing students, and the University of Utah.

Russian billionaire arrested in Alpine 'prostitution' inquiry

2008-07-08T17:57:00.001-07:00

It is known as the place where anybody who is anybody in Russia goes to chill out. But the exclusive French skiing resort of Courchevel was reeling yesterday after the arrest of one of its most flamboyant guests, the billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, in connection with an investigation into an international prostitution ring.

French police seized Mr Prokhorov on Tuesday. Detectives said yesterday that he was being held at police headquarters in Lyon. They arrested 25 other suspects.

Mr Prokhorov, 41, is well known for his party-loving antics. Single and with a fortune of £3.3bn, he is often described as Russia's most eligible bachelor.

He was on holiday when he was arrested at the Alpine resort. Yesterday, however, a spokesman for his firm, Norilsk Nickel, insisted Mr Prokhorov was innocent. Sergei Chernytsin, head of the press department, told the Guardian: "The allegations are absurd. The heads of our company are law-abiding citizens."

Asked about Mr Prokhorov's reputation as a playboy, he added: "Naturally he likes girls and treats them in a natural way. But this isn't a pretext to accuse him of pimping. This is simply ridiculous. When there are evening parties he invites his friends. The friends come with girls," he said.

According to Forbes magazine, Mr Prokhorov is the world's 89th richest person. His billions were made from the vast nickel and gold deposits hacked out of Russia's frozen north. His mine in the town of Norilsk, the second largest human settlement north of the Arctic Circle, was privatised in Russia's anarchic 1990s.

Last night French police said that a decision on whether to charge Mr Prokhorov would be made soon. "The inquiry has been going on for several months," said Xavier Richaud, the public prosecutor at Lyon. "We have not yet been able to establish clear links with prostitution."

The arrests occurred in several hotels at Courchevel. Investigators also seized £33,000 in cash at two hotels in the resort, sources close to the inquiry said. Those questioned include seven Russian women aged about 20, as well as people suspected of bringing them to France.

The operation followed an investigation into a suspected high-class prostitution ring that is believed to have operated in the Alps. Investigators suspect that the women involved worked only occasionally as prostitutes, and that they were recruited to come from Russia during the holidays, the sources said.

Detectives believe their pay came mainly in the form of expensive presents from luxury boutiques in the ski station, the sources added - a similar method of payment used on the French Riviera.

Police began the investigation last year after noticing suspicious trips during the holiday period by young Russian women heading through Geneva to the French Alps, with tickets booked through Austrian travel agencies, the sources said.

Billionaire hires Credit Suisse to list 'cursed' Kazakhstan gold mine

2008-07-01T17:50:00.001-07:00

Robert Friedland, the Canadian billionaire, has appointed three banks led by Credit Suisse to organise a London and Toronto float for a Kazakhstan gold mine known in the City as "the curse" in London and Toronto.

The initial public offering valuing the Bakyrchik mine at $1bn-plus is welcome news for the Kazakh government following the failure on Friday of two of the country's biggest miners to agree a deal that would have created a national champion. The deal collapsed when Kazakhmys rejected a £7bn offer from fellow FTSE-100 miner Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), branding it "derisory".

Mr Friedland is determined to take advantage of the soaring gold price – nearing $900 (£461) an ounce last week – and his company, Ivanhoe Mines, wants to raise at least $200m by listing the east Kazakhstan mine in both Canada and the UK. This would represent 20 per cent of the company, diluting the shareholdings of Ivanhoe and its three Kazakh private sector partners.

Credit Suisse has been joined by Bank of Montreal and Canaccord Adams to organise the listing for the third quarter of this year. Mr Friedland had previously approached HSBC, CIBC World Markets and Morgan Stanley, but at least one of the banks was concerned by Bakyr-chik's long history of problems.

Mr Friedland has owned Bakyrchik, which is the main asset of a joint venture called Altynalmas, since 1996 when he risked $65m on its potential. Bakyrchik's nickname emerged as chemical difficulties caused Ivanhoe to struggle to extract the eight million to 14million ounces of gold reserves, which a source claimed would make it the largest gold mine to emerge from a former Soviet Union state.

However, a source close to the listing process said: "The high extraction costs have been made viable by the increase in the gold price. Also, developments in technology will allow Ivanhoe to extract the gold safely."

Mr Friedland also owns a neighbouring mine, known as Bolshevik, that the source said could be almost as big as Bakyrchik. The source added: "Robert has been rewarded for his perseverance, patience and the increase in the price of gold. We have targeted the third quarter to get it listed, but Bakyrchik will definitely float before the end of the year."

But a leading mining banker said Ivanhoe would have to prove the gold was of good quality, as it is encased by chemicals that can damage the precious metal. "Good luck getting it out – the problem is going to be the quality of the ore."

ENRC offered £15.50 a share for Kazakhmys ahead of this Friday's "put up or shut up" deadline imposed by the Takeover Panel. This was well below Kazakhmys' £17.86 close on Friday and UBS's £19 target price.

A source close to Kazakhmys said the tie-up was inevitable by 2013 as the company's copper, zinc and gold operations would fit with ENRC's chrome, iron ore and aluminium assets. How-ever, he said the timing was not right, despite the Kazakh government's wish for a deal to be completed, as ENRC and Kazakhmys were fighting over which would be the dominant partner.

The source added: "There's no doubt this will be one company within five years – the trend is for miners to have diversified portfolios and the government wants a national champion.

"The politics is, who ends up on top. ENRC was keeping face by putting in an offer. It wasn't a completely rational offer but it was important to put in a bid to keep the Kazakh president happy. But the offer did feel like a Borat-type move."

An ENRC source confirmed the bid was made only because the miner "felt compelled to do so", and the low price reflected the fact that it "couldn't get close" to the level Kazakhmys would have accepted.

Mumbai is world's 7th largest billionaire city

2008-06-24T17:42:00.001-07:00

Country's financial capital Mumbai is the worlds' seventh largest city in terms of billionaire population, says Forbes, the American business magazine famous for its annual list of richest people on the globe.

Mumbai is ranked seventh ahead of San Francisco, Dallas and Tokyo, according to a list of top 10 cities for billionaires available on the website of Forbes.

In terms of average wealth of resident billionaires, Mumbai comes on top of all the 10 cities with an average net worth of 7.6 billion dollars.

The Russian capital city Moscow has bagged the numero uno position in terms of billionaire population. Moscow houses the largest number of billionaires, as much as 74, while New York and London are home to 71 and 36 billionaires respectively.

"Moscow knocked off New York from its perennial No 1 position since 2001," the magazine said. New York is home to 71 billionaires with an average net worth of 3.3 billion.

The other cities, which find a place for themselves in the league of top 10 billionaire cities in the world, include Istanbul which boasts of 34 billionaires, Hong Kong (30) and Los Angeles (24).

Moscow may be housing the largest number of billionaires, but when it comes to the degree of affluence, the Indian city of Mumbai transcends the Russian capital with an average wealth of around 7.6 billion dollars.

Moscow is home to as many as 74 billionaires with an average net worth of 5.9 billion dollar while Mumbai boasts of 20 billionaires, with an an average worth of 7.6 billion dollar, says Forbes.

Hong Kong is the most popular city for billionaires in Asia. As many as 30 billionaires live in this former British colony. But "Mumbai, earns bragging rights as the city on our list with the richest billionaires," the magazine added.

"Mumbai's 20 billionaires, including two of the world's 10 richest (brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani), are worth an average 7.6 billion dollar, handily besting Moscow's 5.9 billion dollar average," the magazine added.

The US has more cities in the top 10 than any other country: four including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and San Francisco.

London houses just 36 billionaires whose primary residence is the UK capital. But interestingly 18 of them are citizens of other countries.

Leading that list is Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who ranked fourth in our March wealthiest billionaires list (he was worth 45 billion dollar then).

Other notable foreigners calling London home include Iceland's richest citizen Thor Bjorgolfsson and shipping tycoon John Fredriksen, who switched his citizenship from Norway to Cyprus recently but chooses to live in London.

Meanwhile, New York City has just one foreign billionaire who claims residence there, and Moscow is home only to Russian billionaires.

The attributes that make a city particularly attractive to billionaires include gourmet restaurants, world-class nightclubs, favourable tax breaks and proximity to the world's financial centres.

Model 'loves older billionaire's brain'

2008-06-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

AUSTRALIAN model Kristy Hinze says she was instantly attracted to her 63-year-old boyfriend, Texan billionaire Jim Clark, by his intelligence.

The 27-year-old granddaughter of the late Queensland politician Russ Hinze has been dating Mr Clark, the founder of Netscape, for two-and-a-half years.

The pair were tight-lipped about their relationship until now, but Hinze has told The Australian Women's Weekly she was instantly attracted to the thrice-married entrepreneur.

"I never thought I was going to date an older man when I first met him," Ms Hinze told the magazine, which is on sale tomorrow.

"To me, it was different to hang out with someone with something to say that was so interesting and important and who was truly, incredibly intelligent.

"He's handsome and has so much charisma - and he's so funny."

Ms Hinze is a former Sports Illustrated covergirl and recently became the face of fashion label Sportscraft.

The US press referred to her as the "Aussie Angel" when she and Mr Clark were spotted together during his divorce from former Forbes magazine reporter Nancy Rutter.

The couple have also been spied together relaxing on Mr Clark's yacht Athena, the largest privately-owned yacht in the world.

Ms Hinze said Mr Clark was a regular guy, despite being reportedly worth $US1.1 billion ($A1.2 billion).

"He's very normal and down to earth," she said.

"He's an incredible man and I just love him."

Ms Hinze will be spending some time away from Mr Clark as she takes up hosting duties on the Australian version of Project Runway, which starts shooting for Foxtel in April.

The World's Billionaires 2008

2008-06-22T18:37:00.001-07:00

The number 13 has long been considered unlucky by superstitious people around the globe. How fitting, then, that Bill Gates' reign as the world's richest person ends after his 13th year at the top.

Despite being worth $58 billion, $2 billion more than last year, Gates is now just the world's third-richest person, ceding the top spot ranking to his good friend and partner in philanthropy, Warren Buffett, whose net worth jumped $10 billion to $62 billion. (All stock prices and net worth valuations were locked in on Feb. 11.) Ranked No. 2 is Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú, whose fortune has doubled in just two years to $60 billion.

It is certainly a dawning of a new era. But not just because of Gates' fall. The 22nd annual rankings of the World's Billionaires reflects all sorts of upheavals in the list's makeup. Two years ago, half of the world's 20 richest were from the U.S. Now only four are. India wins bragging rights for having four among the top 10, more than any other country.

For the first time ever, the number of billionaires Forbes could identify crossed into four figures, reaching 1,125. The total net worth of the group is $4.4 trillion, up $900 billion from last year. Despite the turbulence in the U.S. markets, Americans account for 42% of the world's billionaires and 37%, of the total wealth; those shares are down two and three percentage points, respectively, from last year.

Sixteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia, with 87 billionaires, is the new No. 2 country behind the U.S., easily overtaking Germany, with 59 billionaires, which held the honor for six years.

The rankings include 226 newcomers. Seventy-seven of the new faces come from the U.S., half of whom made their fortunes in finance and investments, including John Paulson and Philip Falcone, both of whom became wealthy shorting subprime debt. Another third of the new billionaires comes from Russia (35), China (28) and India (19). Two of the most noteworthy new entrants are South Africa's Patrice Motsepe and Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, the first black Africans to make their debut among the world's richest. Dangote is also the first-ever Nigerian billionaire.

It is also a record-breaking year for young billionaires, with Forbes finding 50 under the age of 40, 25 of whom are new to the list. Sixty-eight percent of these under-age-40 tycoons built their 10-figure fortunes from scratch, including Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page; former Enron trader John Arnold, who now runs a hedge fund; India's Sameer Gehlaut, who started online brokerage Indiabulls; and, last but not least, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who at age 23 might just be the youngest self-made billionaire in history.

Zuckerberg is probably destined to be the most talked about newcomer of the year because of his age and ingenious social-networking site, but there are fascinating entrepreneurs of all ages climbing into the ranks. Some of the more notable ones include China's Gao Dekang, who is one of the world's biggest makers of down jackets and vests; Portugal's Americo Amorim, who turned his grandfather's small cork operation into the world's largest; and Brazil's Eike Batista, who built and lost a gold mining fortune, before hitting it big in iron ore. He is now the world's richest mining billionaire.

With all the rosy news of the past year and the overall gains, it is easy to lose sight of the volatility that has been wreaking havoc on these fortunes on a daily basis for months. For instance, Hong Kong's richest person, Li Ka-shing, lost $5.5 billion of his net worth, all tied to publicly held stocks, in the 37 days between Jan. 4 and Feb. 11.

Meanwhile, mainland China's richest person, 26-year-old Yang Huiyan, fell from $17.3 billion in September to $7.4 billion in the rankings. Google co-founder Sergey Brin's fortune touched $25.5 billion in the past year but is now down to $18.7 billion. Others were hit much harder, falling off the list entirely, including Lehman Brothers chief Richard Fuld and Bear Stearns ex-chief James Cayne (he was sacked), both victims of the world's credit crunch, and Pulte Homes' William Pulte, whose stock collapsed along with the housing market.

What will happen in the next 12 months as we continue our wealth watching? There will likely be some big losers, some big winners and a lot of ups and downs in between. The only certainty is change itself.

Cities with the most billionaires

2008-06-21T18:25:00.001-07:00

Gourmet restaurants, world-class nightclubs, favorable tax breaks--not to mention proximity to the world's financial centers. These are some of the attributes that make a city particularly attractive to billionaires and cause many of them to cluster in the same urban communities. It's no wonder, then, that one in three billionaires call one of 10 cosmopolitan cities home.

Despite all the squabbling between New York and London for bragging rights, neither is actually home to the largest number of billionaires. That honor belongs to Moscow.

The Russian capital is home to 74 billionaires, with an average net worth of $5.9 billion. That's quite a jump from just five billionaire residents in 2002. Among Moscow's wealthy denizens: Russia's richest person, aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, who just announced plans to take a stake in oil group Russneft, and Roman Abramovich, who owns an expensive dwelling in London but insists that Moscow is his home.

What makes Moscow so popular with Russia's wealthiest? Says billionaire oilman Viktor Vekselberg, "The standard of living in Moscow is on par with all of the world capitals." And it's less expensive. A ticket to Russia's famed Bolshoi Theater--where the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov has danced--will only set you back $50. And top-notch kindergartens run by the government are free.

Moscow knocked off perennial No. 1 city New York, who is close behind with 71 billionaires and an average net worth of $3.3 billion. It is the first time since 2001, when we started closely tracking the city data, that New York hasn't been at the top. More than half of these New Yorkers make their money in finance and investments.

Other well-known New York tycoons include Mayor Michael Bloomberg, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and real estate honcho turned TV celebrity Donald Trump, who says this about his hometown: "Everything is here, everything is accessible, and there is always something great to do."

Coming in a distant third is London. We found just 36 billionaires whose primary residence is the U.K. capital. But what is interesting is that 18 of them are citizens of other countries. Leading that list is Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who ranked fourth in our March wealthiest billionaires list (he was worth $45 billion then). "I find London an excellent place to live largely because of its geographic location," Mittal says. "I can fly pretty much anywhere in 12 hours."

Other notable foreigners calling London home include Iceland's richest citizen, Thor Bjorgolfsson, and shipping tycoon John Fredriksen, who switched his citizenship from Norway to Cyprus recently but chooses to live in London, where he owns one of the city's most expensive houses. There are also a number of billionaires, like Abramovich, who own second homes in London but don't consider it their main dwelling. Meanwhile, New York City has just one foreign billionaire who claims residence there, and Moscow is home only to Russian billionaires.

The U.S. has more cities in the top 10 than any other country: four including Los Angeles, home to 24 billionaires, including director Steven Spielberg; Dallas, home to 15, including oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens; and San Francisco, with 19 billionaires, including tech wunderkinds like Google's Larry Page (his co-founder Sergey Brin and the world's youngest billionaire Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg live close by in Silicon Valley).

Hong Kong is the most popular city for Asian billionaires; 30 live in the former British colony. But Mumbai, India, earns bragging rights as the city on our list with the richest billionaires. Mumbai's 20 billionaires, including two of the world's 10 richest (brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani), are worth an average $7.6 billion, handily besting Moscow's $5.9 billion average.

And where billionaires go, the luxuries follow. These centers of finance and culture welcome you--if you can afford them, that is.

Russian-Jewish billionaire to build U.K.'s priciest mansion

2008-06-20T18:21:00.001-07:00

Russian-Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich is planning on building a mansion worth an estimated 150 million pounds ($298 million), British media reported on Monday.

Abramovich reportedly presented a building permit request to the Kensington and Chelsea council Monday for approval for the house, which will be the most value private residence ever in the United Kingdom when finished.

The house will reportedly include eight bedrooms and will include the renovation of two buildings in the Lowndes Square area of Knightsbridge in London. The two buildings are currently split into nine separate apartment residences that Abramovich bought individually.

Abramowitz, the second richest person in Britain and the owner of the Chelsea football club, is worth an estimated 11.7 billion pounds.

The mansion will join Abramovich already impressive collection of houses, including his other homes in London and Moscow and his summer homes in southern France, Tuscany, and Montenegro.

Russian media outlets have speculated that Abramovich real estate plans show he is planning to make London his permanent base of operations.

The mansion will also reportedly conclude a private movie theater, an indoor pool, a sauna and an entertainment room. It is expected to be eight floors, three of them underground

McClatchy-Tribune News Op-Ed: Holly Sklar, Billionaires up, America down

2008-06-19T18:18:00.001-07:00

When it comes to producing billionaires, America is doing great.

Until 2005, multimillionaires could still make the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2006, the Forbes 400 went billionaires only.

This year, you'd need a Forbes 482 to fit all the billionaires.

A billion dollars is a lot of dough. Queen Elizabeth II, British monarch for five decades, would have to add $400 million to her $600 million fortune to reach $1 billion. And she'd need another $300 million to reach the Forbes 400 minimum of $1.3 billion. The average Forbes 400 member has $3.8 billion.

When the Forbes 400 began in 1982, it was dominated by oil and manufacturing fortunes. Today, says Forbes, "Wall Street is king."

Nearly half the 45 new members, says Forbes, "made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Money manager John Paulson joins the list after pocketing more than $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer."

The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn't party time for America.

We have a record 482 billionaires -- and record foreclosures.

We have a record 482 billionaires -- and a record 47 million people without any health insurance.

Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires -- and 5 million more people living below the poverty line.

The official poverty threshold for one person was a ridiculously low $10,294 in 2006. That won't get you two pounds of caviar ($9,800) and 25 cigars ($730) on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index. The $20,614 family-of-four poverty threshold is lower than the cost of three months of home flower arrangements ($24,525).

Wealth is being redistributed from poorer to richer.

Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the top 1 percent of households grew by 78 percent, reports Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent.

In 2004, one out of six households had zero or negative net worth. Nearly one out of three households had less than $10,000 in net worth, including home equity. That's before the mortgage crisis hit.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires, the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for inflation in $2006. Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made $647 million, and the average worker made $34,861, with vanishing health and pension coverage.

The Forbes 400 is even more of a rich men's club than when it began. The number of women has dropped from 75 in 1982 to 39 today.

The 400 richest Americans have a conservatively estimated $1.54 trillion in combined wealth. That amount is more than 11 percent of our $13.8 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -- the total annual value of goods and services produced by our nation of 303 million people. In 1982, Forbes 400 wealth measured less than 3 percent of U.S. GDP.

And the rich, notes Fortune magazine, "give away a smaller share of their income than the rest of us."

Thanks to mega-tax cuts, the rich can afford more mega-yachts, accessorized with helicopters and mini-submarines. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of bridges, levees, mass transit, parks and other public assets inherited from earlier generations of taxpayers crumbles from neglect, and the holes in the safety net are growing.

The top 1 percent of households -- average income $1.5 million -- will save a collective $79.5 billion on their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. That's more than the combined budgets of the Transportation Department, Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715 billion between 2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion in mounting national debt plus interest.

The children and grandchildren of today's underpaid workers will pay for the partying of today's plutocrats and their retinue of lobbyists.

It's time for Congress to roll back tax cuts for the wealthy and close the loophole letting billionaire hedge fund speculators pay taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries.

Inequality has roared back to 1920s levels. It was bad for our nation then. It's bad for our nation now.

Billionaire may run Yahoo proxy campaign

2008-06-18T18:14:00.001-07:00

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is considering running a proxy campaign to elect new board members at Yahoo! Inc after the company failed to forge a deal to merge with Microsoft Corp, sources close to the matter said on Tuesday.

The veteran investor has built up a stake in Yahoo in the last week and would run a slate in an effort to force the company back to the negotiating table with Microsoft, the sources said.

It is unlikely that Icahn, a veteran of numerous proxy battles, will join with other hedge funds in the campaign, the sources said.

A decision to run a proxy slate this year must be made this week.

Billionaire Buffett still complaining his taxes are too low

2008-06-17T18:00:00.001-07:00

Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett has been complaining for years that his taxes are too low. Last June, he said at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that he was taxed at only 17.7% last year on his $46 million in income, while his secretary paid 30% of her $60,000.

NBC's Tom Brokaw recently interviewed Buffett, "whose approach doesn't make him very popular with his fellow billionaires."

"The taxation system has tilted toward the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years," Buffett, the nation's third richest man, told Brokaw. Buffett said he did an informal survey of federal taxes paid by his own office staff, and the average was 32.9%, compared to his 17.7%.

"There wasn't anybody in the office, from the receptionists on, that paid as low a tax rate," Buffett stated, noting that "I have no tax planning, I don't have an accountant, I don't have tax shelters."

"It's not right," one of Buffett's receptionist's told Brokaw.

"In theory, a progressive consumption tax makes the most sense," Buffett suggested to Brokaw -- referring to a form of sales tax that exempts basic necessities entirely and has higher rates on luxuries. However, that method has been criticized as likely to lead to distortions in the economy and corruption in setting rates.

Buffett has now challenged his fellow members of the "Forbes 400" to do the same survey he did, saying he'll bet a million dollars their average rate will be less than that of their receptionists.

"How much are you hearing from your fellow richfellows?" Brokaw asked.

"I don't hear from them. They're happy," chuckled Buffett.

The tax code has not been a major issue among the presidential candidates, but Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has recently offered a plan to increase taxes on super-wealthy hedge fund managers, who currently pay at the 15% capital gains rate, while lowering them for most families that earn under $500,000.

Police question Gaydamak, billionaire charges 'persecution'

2008-06-16T17:55:00.001-07:00

Detectives of the police International Crimes Investigation unit Monday questioned billionaire Arkadi Gaydamak over suspicions of money laundering and fraud in connections with a 2000 transfer of nearly half a million shekels.

Gaydamak severely criticized the investigation, saying that judges and police were conducting "personal and political persecution" of the Russian-born businessman, who recently formed a new Knesset faction with three legislators who broke away from the Pensioners party.

"They don't want me to enter politics. I am fighting for justice in Israel," he said, in a reference to the name of his new party, Social Justice.

Last month, Israeli authorities asked Luxembourg for assistance in probing suspicions that Gaydamak had engaged in fraud and money laundering with the help of senior Bank Hapoalim officials.

According to the request, Gaydamak transferred NIS 450 million out of the country in 2000, in a transaction which was not reported to the Bank of Israel by Bank Hapoalim, the bank which carried out the transfer. The law requires that such transfers be reported to the central bank.

Police suspect that Bank Hapoalim officials helped Gaydamak transfer the funds, a suspicion based on the findings of a Bank of Israel investigation.

US billionaire: Olmert allegations insulting

2008-06-15T17:42:00.001-07:00

A Jewish-American billionaire questioned by police as part of a corruption investigation into Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday he has never given money to the Israeli leader and called suggestions of any wrongdoing "insulting."

S. Daniel Abraham, a philanthropist who made his fortune as founder of Slim-Fast food products, was summoned by police this week to discuss his ties with Olmert. Police suspect Olmert accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations in the U.S., either for campaign financing or possibly as bribes.

"Of course I never gave any money to Ehud Olmert. The very question is insulting to me," Abraham told Israel Army Radio. "This is my reputation at stake and I have no reason to risk it."

Abraham, a strong supporter of Israel who is in the country during its 60th anniversary celebrations, said he believes Olmert is honest and "one of the best prime ministers we have ever had."

The police investigation has cast a cloud over the country's celebrations, raised doubts about Olmert's ability to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians and embarrassed the prime minister at a time when he should be enjoying the spotlight.

Another Jewish-American billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, also gave a statement to police this week as part of the investigation. At a Wednesday gala, the casino mogul sat in the front row with President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and other U.S. and Israeli officials, including Olmert.

The investigation has focused on the role of Morris Talansky, an American businessman who has said he raised money for Olmert. Talansky, who has denied trying to bribe Olmert and said he believed all contributions were legal, is scheduled to give a court deposition on May 25.

Olmert on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to block that deposition, and the court will consider that request on Monday.

Police said last week that they suspect Olmert accepted large sums of cash from Talansky. Some of the donations are believed to have taken place during Olmert's 10-year tenure as mayor of Jerusalem as well as while he served as trade minister early this decade. Olmert became prime minister in 2006.

Olmert has denied breaking any laws and promised to resign if indicted.

Australian billionaire buys Vietnam War Victoria Cross

2008-06-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

SYDNEY: An Australian billionaire has helped buy a Vietnam War Victoria Cross medal for $488,000 to prevent it leaving the country, officials said on Wednesday.

The South Australian government said television proprietor Kerry Stokes contributed to its winning bid for the medal, which was awarded posthumously to Major Peter Badcoe for heroic actions during the Vietnam War in 1967.

Stokes and the state government are believed to have evenly split the cost of the medal, which was the last Australian-awarded Vietnam War VC in private hands before it was auctioned with other military memorabilia Tuesday night.

"Together, we have ensured that these precious historic items remain in safe hands and available for all Australians to appreciate," South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley said.

Stokes also bought the last Victoria Cross put up for auction in Australia, paying 1.2 million dollars in 2006 for the medal awarded to an Australian captain in the Gallipoli campaign of World War One.

The Victoria Cross is the highest honour for gallantry for Britain and some countries of its former empire, and is struck from bronze from a captured Chinese-made cannon used by the Russians at Sebastopol during the Crimean War.

Badcoe earned his medal for a series of actions leading South Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam War.

These included rescuing an injured US medic under heavy machine gun fire then storming the machine gun nest and repelling a Viet Cong attack on a regional headquarters.

He was killed in April 1967 while leading a fightback against a Viet Cong ambush on a convoy of armoured personnel carriers.

Badcoe's VC will go on display in Adelaide for 12 months before being exhibited at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Billionaire soccer club buyers eye southern Europe

2008-06-13T17:27:00.001-07:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Manchester United and Chelsea will be the centre of attention for millions around the world in Wednesday's Champions League final in Moscow, but soccer bankers have their eyes further south as they seek new opportunities to emulate the English clubs' success and cash in the profits.

Italy and Spain are set to become the next markets for international billionaire investors on a football buying spree, people familiar with the situation told Reuters, after many top English clubs, including the two in Wednesday's final, have already been taken over.

U.S. tycoon George Soros is interested in Italy's AS Roma, while a foreign group of investors talked to Spain's Mallorca last summer about a bid, two sources familiar with the situation said.

Valencia Chairman Juan Soler also met investors earlier this year about a possible sale of his majority stake, the club's second largest shareholder, Vicente Soriano, said publicly in February.

"Following all the interest in English clubs, buyers are looking further afield," said Richard Feigen, managing director at Seymour Pierce, a London-based investment bank that advised on the sale of Chelsea and Manchester City to Russian and Thai billionaires Roman Abramovich and Thaksin Shinawatra respectively.

"Spain and Italy are top of the list of the market that people are investigating," Feigen said.

Soaring television and commercial revenues over the past five years have attracted the fortunes of investment banks such as Morgan Stanley, which holds a stake in Paris St. Germain, wealthy individuals such as the Glazer family at Manchester United and Liverpool's Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and hedge funds such as Sisu Capital, owner of a stake in Coventry City.

Billionaire Carlos Slim Helu launches website

2008-06-13T01:27:00.001-07:00

The 67-year-old Mexican business magnate of Lebanese descent designed the site, which quietly went live about three weeks ago as a forum for his ideas on topics ranging from business ventures to philanthropical projects.

Newspapers in Mexico City publicized the page on Tuesday.

The basis of Slim's fortune is Telefonos de Mexico, the country's largest fixed-line telephone company -- and its dominant Internet provider. Most Mexicans access the Internet through Slim's companies.

Slim's home page features a color photo of the magnate and offers advice: "With a good historical perspective, we can keep the past and present in mind and develop a clear vision of the future."

It also features pages with biographical, business and philanthropic information, as well as a question-and-answer section.

A Mexican financial Web site recently put Slim's worth ahead of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates'-- a change that would make the Mexican businessman the world's richest person.

At a press conference last month, Slim said he pays little attention to such rankings.

"It doesn't matter to me if I'm first or twentieth or two-thousandth," he said.

Slim's latest philantropic project is a program to donate 250,000 laptop computers to Mexican schools and libraries by the end of the year.

Oil Billionaire T. Boone Pickens Turns To Wind

2008-06-12T01:18:00.001-07:00

For those of you not fortunate enough to know who T. Boone Pickens is, let me give you a brief rundown: he's an egomaniac, oilman, and owns a hedge fund named BP Capital Management. He's worth 3 billion dollars, and has given 230 million-plus to the athletic department of Oklahoma State University since 2005. He also gave 3 million dollars to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the stars of the 2004 presidential campaign. Suffice to say, I think he's a bad, bad, man. And yet, even he knows that oil isn't going to hold on forever: he just spent 2 billion dollars to start a wind farm in Texas.

Just how much wind power will 2 billion dollars buy you? 667 turbines from GE will eventually produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity, capable of powering 300,000 American homes. To provide a frame of reference, that's the size of present-day New Orleans, Tampa, or St. Louis. This however, is just a drop in the ocean– Mesa Power, the company through which T. Boone (T-Bone?) Pickens is running the project, has established this as just the first stage of four, with an eventual generating capacity of 4,000 megawatts.

Known as the Pampa Wind Project, the wind farm will be in the Texas panhandle, and will be superior to an oil field in a vast number of ways, but one, especially that matters most to Pickens: "You find an oil field, it peaks and starts declining, and you've got to find another one to replace it. With wind there's no deadline curve."

Executor denies executing billionaire’s will

2008-06-11T01:15:00.001-07:00

I would like to correct any misimpression that might have been created by the news item titled, "Jamby Madrigal: I am not greedy." (Inquirer, 4/22/08) The report stated that "Chito Madrigal passed away on March 24, leaving her fortune to her husband, former Foreign Affairs Minister Manuel Collantes and niece, Gizela M. Gonzales-Montinola, whose husband, Bank of the Philippine Islands President Aurelio Montinola, executed the childless billionaire's will two years ago."

I have been advised that the term "execute" carries specific and peculiar meanings in law. In the particular context of the article, "execute" may be misunderstood to mean as "making a legal document [such as a will] valid by signing" or "bringing a legal document to its final, legally enforceable form."

Ms Chito Madrigal's will was signed and executed by no less than herself as the testator. And while I was named by the will as one of its executors (i.e., one charged to implement the will's terms and conditions), I never "executed" the will two years ago, or during her lifetime.

Egyptian billionaire ‘who spied for Mossad’ found dead

2008-06-10T01:10:00.001-07:00

An Egyptian billionaire financier who feared for his life after being accused of being a Mossad spy was found dead outside his Mayfair flat yesterday in suspicious circumstances.

Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the late President Gamel Abdel Nasser, was found beneath his fourth-floor flat in Carlton House Terrace.

Police were treating his death as suspicious. Friends of Mr Marwan, a former shareholder in Chelsea Football Club, said that he had feared assassination after being named three years ago as an agent during the Yom Kippur war.

Rumours of his death circulated in London's Arab community last night. Some believe that he may have taken his life after a serious illness was diagnosed.

Mr Marwan's death will send shockwaves across the Middle East and among some of Britain's wealthiest people. His associates included Adnan Khashoggi, the arms dealer, Ken Bates, the football club chairman, the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the late Tiny Rowland.

If found to be murder, his death will carry echoes of last year's assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent.

Mr Marwan, 63, was identified as an agent by the Vanity Fairwriter Harold Bloom in his book Eve of Destruction, which detailed his involvement in the Yom Kippur war in 1973. Although Nasser, who humiliated the British Government at Suez, died in 1970, Mr Marwan, his son-in-law, was part of the inner circle of his successor, Anwar Sadat, who started the war.

The identity of the agent, described by a postwar Israeli inquiry commission only as "the source", had been a closely guarded secret. Evidence pointed towards someone high in the Egyptian Establishment.

From published accounts based on Israeli sources, it was alleged that Mr Marwan was a "walk-in" who entered an Israeli embassy in Europe and offered his services in 1969. Extensive checks convinced Mossad that he was not a double agent.

Billionaire To Lead Mutiny Against Yahoo

2008-06-09T00:55:00.001-07:00

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn reportedly has decided to lead a mutiny against Yahoo Inc.'s board in an attempt to pressure the directors into reviving negotiations to sell Yahoo to Microsoft Corp.

To turn up the heat on Yahoo's board, Icahn has lined up a slate of 10 directors to nominate as replacements, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Wednesday, citing an unnamed person close to the matter.

Icahn hadn't returned phone messages from The Associated Press as of late Wednesday. His intentions should become clear soon, however, because Yahoo has set a Thursday deadline for submitting candidates to oppose its board at the company's July 3 annual meeting.

A representative of Sunnyvale-based Yahoo declined to comment.

Yahoo's board is on the hot seat for rejecting Microsoft's initial bid of $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, and taking measures that finally drove away the software maker.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer orally offered to raise the offer to $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, earlier this month. He withdrew the bid May 3 after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, acting on behalf of the board, held out for $37 per share -- a price that Yahoo's stock hasn't reached in more than two years.

Yahoo shares rose 58 cents to close at $27.14 Wednesday on hopes that Icahn would spearhead a stockholder revolt. They gained another 51 cents in after-hours trading.

The Yahoo board's demands for $37 per share infuriated many of the company's shareholders, who are skeptical about Yang's pledge to dramatically accelerate the Internet icon's revenue growth during the next two years after being stuck in financial funk since 2005.

Hoping to capitalize on the discontent, Icahn reportedly has spent more than $1 billion to acquire about 50 million Yahoo shares -- a stake of about 3.6 percent.

Now Icahn appears ready to spend millions of dollars waging a campaign to oust the Yahoo directors, including Yang, who started the company with David Filo 14 years ago.

The Journal reported Icahn's list of alternate directors includes at least one former CEO, Frank Biondi, who used to run Viacom Inc. Biondi has worked with Icahn in previous battles -- known as proxy contests -- to unseat corporate boards.

It's usually difficult for a dissident shareholder to prevail in proxy contests.

Billionaire Helmsley’s prison suit sells for $850

2008-06-08T00:44:00.001-07:00

CHICAGO - The pink wool and denim skirt suit worn by the late real estate billionaire Leona Helmsley when she went to prison in 1992 sold for $850 at auction on Sunday.

The Chanel suit was one of hundreds of items of clothing and accessories belonging to the late "Queen of Mean" sold at the auction, which raised $118,845, said Alice York, marketing coordinator for Leslie Hindman Auctioneers.

The top-selling item was a J. Mendel brown broad-tail coat that fetched $12,000, while a brown sable coat went for $6,000, York said.

The collection included a red beaded evening gown designed by Bob Mackie, which brought in $3,200 and a lot of 16 pairs of Ferragamo shoes that sold for $1,000.

Many of the items sold were made by Helmsley's full-time dressmaker, who worked in a space that occupied the third floor of one wing of Helmsley's Greenwich, Conn., estate.

The Helmsley holdings once included The Empire State Building and several lavish hotels, which were promoted by advertisements in which Leona Helmsley appeared with copy reading, "The only palace where the queen stands guard."

Helmsley was convicted of tax evasion in 1989 and jailed for 18 months. Testimony at her trial included her comment: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

She was profiled in articles, biographies and television movies with the moniker "The Queen of Mean."

She hit the headlines again after her death in August 2007 when she willed $12 million to her Maltese dog, Trouble. Fortune magazine said it was one of the year's dumbest business moves.

The World's Youngest Billionaire: Will He Keep It?

2008-06-07T00:36:00.001-07:00

It's an almost-brilliant move.

This has been a landmark week for Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old founder of social networking site Facebook.
facebook

First, Forbes magazine — that arbiter of all things obscenely wealthy — declared Zuckerberg to be the youngest "self-made" billionaire on the planet. Then, associate editor Matthew Miller took the title up a notch by adding, "He is the youngest billionaire in the world right now — and we also believe he is the youngest self-made billionaire in history."

That last probably isn't true — but unlike, say, Alexander the Great, Zuckerberg didn't have to lead an army to conquer Asia Minor but merely created a venue for college girls to post photos for which they'll have to apologize for the rest of their lives (appropriately enough, because Facebook reportedly started out as a coed rating service for Zuckerberg's classmates at Harvard).

The actual historic value of Zuckerberg earning this title is probably negligible, because I doubt he'll hold it very long — or, for that matter, whether he'll still be a billionaire a few years from now, when Facebook follows MySpace as the Last Big Thing.

The rise of the open-source billionaire

2008-06-06T00:29:00.001-07:00

Bernard Golden almost certainly hits it spot on when he suggests that we won't have any open-source billionaires, per se, but rather billionaires built on the foundation of open source. He doesn't come out and say it, but I suspect he has Google, Digg, and others like this in mind - companies that depend fundamentally on open source, yet aren't open-source companies, per se.

Because the cost of software has plummeted, new companies are being formed that take advantage of open source to create new offerings -- and these new companies will build enormous fortunes on the back of open source. I refer to this phenomena as "the migration of margin."

The enormous margin previously enjoyed by software is going to move to the new products and services made possible by open source software. If you want to see the billionaires of open source, you'll have to look elsewhere. In the next week or two, I'm going to discuss a few of these companies, ones that have leveraged open source to develop products and services that wouldn't be possible in a proprietary software world.

Now, I personally believe that we'll also see a few billionaires who build their businesses directly from selling open-source solutions (Matthew Szulik, given another few years with Red Hat, likely would have qualified). But as the whole point of open source is to cut the gross inefficiencies of the proprietary model and return more value to customers, Bernard is right: More money will be made offering services that sit atop open source than directly from open source.

Anti-War Billionaire George Soros Funded Iraq Study

2008-06-05T00:26:00.001-07:00

A study that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the nearly $100,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

"The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research," said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.

His team surveyed 1,849 homes at 47 sites across Iraq, asking people about births, deaths and migration in their households.

Professor John Tirman of MIT said this weekend that $46,000 of the approximate $100,000 cost of the study had come from Soros's Open Society Institute.

Roberts said this weekend: "In retrospect, it was probably unwise to have taken money that could have looked like it would result in a political slant. I am adamant this could not have affected the outcome of the research."

The Lancet did not break any rules by failing to disclose Soros's sponsorship.

New Billionaire Tries To Develop Eccentricities

2008-06-04T00:21:00.001-07:00

Since several shrewd investments in software start-ups pushed his net worth over the $1 billion mark last fall, Mark Stern has been attempting to cultivate eccentricities commensurate with his new wealth, the venture capitalist said Monday.
Enlarge Image New Billionaire

Stern prepares to fly his newly completed rocket to a movie premiere 100 miles away in Hollywood, via the moon.

"When you have $975 million, you're just like everyone else," said Stern, 41, from the bow of Excelsior, a 58-person canoe that he commissioned for a world-record paddle around the world. "But I'm a billionaire now. People expect me to use my money to feed my ego to the point of borderline insanity."

The often-caped Stern, previously an affable and soft-spoken man who kept a relatively low public profile aside from some philanthropic work, said his new status forced him to rethink his legacy.

"I was being referred to as 'California billionaire Mark Stern,' or simply 'billionaire Mark Stern,' and it lacked impact," the mogul said. "So I vowed not to rest until every mention of my name is prefaced with 'eccentric California billionaire.'"

Stern added: "And just to be clear, there's no way I'm settling for 'colorful California billionaire.'"

Though Stern said he is "beginning to get the hang of" billionaire life, he admitted to a few false starts while developing his bizarre idiosyncrasies, citing his easygoing, essentially rational nature as a major obstacle.

"I did try the Howard Hughes thing of stockpiling urine in jars and wearing Kleenex boxes on my feet, but it was so depressing and lonely," Stern said. "Plus, I realized that it's not eccentric to copy someone else's eccentricities."

Billionaire Buffett backs Obama for president

2008-06-03T00:19:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffett, the world's richest man, is backing Barack Obama for US president and thinks current US economic policy will push the dollar lower against other global currencies.

Mr Buffett told a press conference in Frankfurt, Germany on Monday that he had offered support to both Senator Obama and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton but that since it appeared Senator Obama would win the party's nomination, "I will be very happy if he is elected president.

"He is my choice," he added.

Commenting on the US economy, the 77-year-old investor who is known as the "Sage of Omaha," stressed that fiscal, monetary and trade policies were of great importance.

"I think that the US has followed and is following policies which will cause the US dollar to weaken over a long period of time," he said.

After voicing support for Senator Obama, Mr Buffett nonetheless noted the US economy had managed to do "awfully well" despite a depression, two world wars and many financial crises.

"They say in the stock market ... buy stock in a business that's so good that an idiot can run it because sooner or later one will," he added.

"Well, the United States is a little like that. We can take a little mis-management from time to time."

Billionaire will dig tunnel linking Russia & US

2008-06-02T00:18:00.001-07:00

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has fuelled talk of a massive tunnel between Europe and America by forking out $160 MLN on the world's largest drill. The 19-metre giant will be the first drill capable of boring a four-lane tunnel.

The project would link Russia's far eastern Chukotka region, which Abramovich governs, with America's Alaska.

The tunnel was first mooted by the Tsars and then in the 1990s, but both times it was dumped because of high costs.

President Vladimir Putin is said to back the latest idea, as it would open up lucrative freight routes from Europe and allow Russian gas to be easily exported.

Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reports that Putin has already had secret talks about the project with Washington.

The drill, which will take German firm Herrenknecht AG two years to build, will have to bore through the 55-mile wide Bering Strait.

The giant drill will dwarf the current record-holder – a 15 metre Chinese drill being used for a Yangtze tunnel.

Billionaire to set up magazine for snobs

2008-05-31T23:34:00.001-07:00

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's super-rich love to flaunt their wealth. Soon they will have a magazine called Snob to help them.
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Mikhail Prokhorov -- whose wealth is estimated at around $22 billion -- plans to spend $150 million setting up a magazine, website and television station called Snob, the general director of the new venture told Reuters on Wednesday.

"It's for people who are successful and those who want to be successful," said Andrei Shmarov, who will run Snob.

Prokhorov, 42, made his fortune in the chaotic 1990s when businessmen bought up parts of former Soviet industries for a fraction of their real value.

The Forbes Rich List ranked Prokhorov as the 24th richest person in the world. He is one of the owners of Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest nickel producer, and Polyus Gold, Russia's biggest gold producer.

Forbes reports billionaire boom

2008-05-30T18:50:00.001-07:00

A worldwide economic boom has yielded a record number of dollar billionaires in the past year, according to Forbes.

Their number rose by 15% to 793 with India taking the lead in Asia and new Russians lining up to fill the gap left by jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Microsoft's Bill Gates tops the list for the 12th year running, with a net worth of $50bn (£29bn).

The combined net worth of the 793 is $2.6 trillion and US billionaires account for just under half the amount.

TOP FIVE BILLIONAIRES
Bill Gates (US, Microsoft) -
$50bn
Warren Buffett (US, investor) - $42bn
Carlos Slim (Mexico, industrialist) - $30bn
Ingvar Kamprad (Sweden, Ikea) - $28bn
Lakshmi Mittal (India, steel) $23.5bn

"A billion just isn't what it used to be," said Luisa Kroll, Forbes magazine's associate editor, revealing the 20th annual list in New York.

But she noted the figures were conservative estimates for different reasons.

A very positive spreadsheet could indicate a desire to sell a business, she told reporters, while somebody about to divorce might seek to downplay their worth.

According to the 2006 list:

* the youngest billionaire is a Lebanese woman, 22-year-old Hind Hariri, who inherited $1.4bn from her assassinated father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri

* India's 23 billionaires have a combined net worth of $99bn, surpassing former Asian leader Japan's 27 billionaires with their total worth of $67bn

* Russia's 33 billionaires now have a combined wealth of $172bn, based largely on oil and gas prices, compared to a total of $68bn for oil-rich Saudi Arabia's 11 billionaires.

US billionaire Buffett backs Obama for president

2008-05-29T18:42:00.001-07:00

Warren Buffett, the world's richest man, is backing Barak Obama for US president and thinks current US economic policy will push the dollar lower against other global currencies.

Buffett told a press conference here Monday he had offered support to both Obama and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton but that since it appeared Obama would win the party's nomination, "I will be very happy if he is elected president.

"He is my choice," Buffett said.

Commenting on the US economy, the 77-year-old investor who is known as the "Sage of Omaha," stressed that fiscal, monetary and trade policies were of great importance.

"I think that the US has followed and is following policies which will cause the US dollar to weaken over a long period of time," he said.

After voicing support for Obama, Buffett nonetheless noted the US economy had managed to do "awfully well" despite a depression, two world wars and many financial crises.

"They say in the stock market ... buy stock in a business that's so good that an idiot can run it because sooner or later one will," he added.

"Well, the United States is a little like that. We can take a little mis-management from time to time," Buffett said.

The chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company with 76 businesses, also said he was ready to add one or two more, on condition they were well-run and had annual pre-tax earnings on the order of 50 million euros (78 million dollars), he added.

"The bigger the better," Buffett said.

Almost all of his companies are in the United States but after investing in the Israeli industrial group Iscar, he was visiting Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy to spread the word that European groups were also welcome to give him a call.

"I kind of go the the office everyday and wait for the phone to ring and hope it isn't a wrong number," he quipped to describe his strategy of letting companies come to him rather than searching them out.

Passionate about cars since childhood: Vijay Mallya

2008-05-28T18:39:00.001-07:00

Kuala Lumpur, March 24 - Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya says motorsports like Formula One has caught the imagination of the young and successful in India.

'Cricket is like a religion in India but cricket is for everyone. The young successful Indians want something different, something with a bit of glamour element in it,' Mallya told The Star newspaper.

'Formula One has something different and has glamour in it. It fits right in.

'There are about 500 million Indians under 25 and over 400 million under 20,' said the Indian businessman, who is the chairman of the United Breweries Group and Kingfisher Airlines.

The liquor baron of India also owns a Formula One team and says he was passionate about cars since his early childhood.

'My mum said the first word that I ever uttered when I was a baby was 'car'.

'I have always loved motorsports and when the opportunity came for me to own a Formula One team I grabbed it,' he said.

'It is not every day that a Formula One constructor is up for sale. I looked at it in the Indian context,' said Mallya, the first Indian to own a Formula One team.

But Mallya is no stranger to motorsports. Having started off as a driver in the 1970s and sponsored Formula One teams such as Benetton in 1995 and Toyota in 2007, he took over the Spyker team and renamed it Force India this season.

'I don't do it as a hobby. Nobody in their right mind will own a Formula One team as a hobby. It takes a lot of passion, commitment and dedication,' he added.

Australia must capitalise on India's growth

2008-05-27T18:26:00.001-07:00

Sydney, April 6 - Business is booming in India. And Australia with its expertise must capitalise on it, says a veteran Australian journalist and the author of a book on the subject.

Geoff Hiscock has authored 'India's Global Wealth Club: The stunning Rise of its Billionaires and the Secrets of Their Success', published this year by John Wiley & Sons.

Hiscock believes the opportunities for Australian companies are immense although its big relationship with India will start only in the next five to 10 years.

'The Indian supply chain is deficient and requires expertise in the transport and logistics sector. Australian company Linfox has seen the opportunity and entered the market in time, but there is opportunity for many more, for example, in the next five to 10 years India will need 50 million truck drivers, who will need to be trained,' Hiscock told IANS.

Food processing is another sector where Australian companies with their expertise in food packaging and shipping can find a huge market, he says.

The Tata Group has a sourcing arrangement for its consumer durables business with Australia's Woolworths that operates retail formats as varied as supermarkets, convenience stores, liquor, petrol, general merchandise and consumer electronics among others.

The Indian automotive industry is on the move. Hiscock says: 'As Indian companies look for more markets abroad, Australia could be a place for market testing their products for international acceptability.

'At the same time Indian companies could be looking at Australian technology in automotive design and components.'

In the book, he profiles the success stories of 100 of India's richest.

'The message across the board is: keep it simple, business doesn't have to be complicated. Give it all your passion, focus, dedication and infuse the same passion in people working for the company. The right timing in business is a big factor and so is some amount of luck,' Hiscock said.

According to the author, there are seven secrets of India's remarkable resurgence -- India's size, science, diaspora, cultural history, English literacy, strategic weight and switch to a globalisation mindset.

The book provides rich insights into the intriguing subject of what makes India tick. It is a good reference source for those venturing into this highly lucrative but profoundly complex Indian marketplace.

Hiscock is also the author of the hugely successful books 'Asia's Wealth Club' (1997) and 'Asia's New Wealth Club' (2000).

'As a consequence of rapid growth in the Indian share market in 2007, even though the gloss has been taken off in 2008, IPOs have thrown up at least 10 to 12 new billionaires in the last six months,' he says.

'Most of the billionaire newcomers are in financial services, property, construction and infrastructure, reflecting the hottest sectors of the Indian economy,' he adds.

He lists 12 new names reshaping the order of India's Global Wealth Club in 2008 - Anand Jain of Jai Corp; Gautam Adani of Adani Enterprises; Rakesh K. Wadhawan of HDIL; Reji Abraham of Aban Offshore, L. Madhusudhan Rao of Lanco Infratech; Ravi Puravankara of Puravankara Projects; Atul Punj of Punj Lloyd; Nimesh Kampani of JM Financial; Murali K. Divi of Divi's Labs; P.N.C. Menon of Sobha Developers; Rohtas Goel of Omaxe; and Sameer Gehlaut of Indiabulls Financial Services.

Hiscock has just completed his second book focusing on the 'most prospective' retail sector in India. To be launched later this year, it explores the changes in the Indian consumer, how younger Indians have more confident and are willing to borrow to finance their consumption.

According to Hiscock, the first big IPO success of 2008 is Future Capital, the consumer finance arm of the Future Group empire created by India's innovative retailer Kishore Biyani. Biyani faces tough competition in the retail sector from Reliance Industries, whose chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani ranks among India's richest men.

Also in the retail fray are: Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Airtel, who is due to open his first Bharti supermarket soon and Kumar M. Birla of Aditya Birla Group, who is launching his own chain of supermarkets.

Hiscock says: 'The things that have driven growth in India include its technology, its expanding share market, its financial reforms, its young population and a relatively benign environment. It is India's century for the taking. The Golden Bird is ready to fly again.'

India's smart tycoons are the `knockout punch' against China

2008-05-26T18:18:00.001-07:00

Toronto, April 17 - Heaping praise on India's billionaire business leaders, a major Canadian newspaper said Wednesday that they could take India ahead of China in the battle for economic supremacy in the 21st century.

In the Globe and Mail, which is the most respected Canadian newspaper, columnist Marcus Gee said the genius of its business leaders will be India's 'knockout punch in the title bout 21st century business'.

It said that though China was way ahead of India in exports, infrastructure development, foreign investment and energy consumption, India might surpass it in the long run because of its 'smart, ambitious, and forward-looking' business leaders.

Thanks to their genius, it said, India, which was an 'economic washout' just two decades ago, now has more billionaires than Japan.

'India has 53, up from 34 the year before. Four Indian billionaires are on the Top 10 list of the world's richest people, more than any other country can claim.'

The newspaper said Indians were now accumulating money faster than the Japanese did in the 1980s and the Chinese in the 1990s.

Citing how Mukesh Ambani gifted his wife Neena an Airbus worth $60 million on her 44th birthday, it said Indian business leaders were no longer shy to flaunt their wealth. Even more impressive than their wealth, it said, was their leadership of their companies.

'It's the way they are taking their companies, and in the process their country, forward. The companies they are building are not just big, bold and brawny in the Chinese model, but smart, nimble and surprisingly modern,' it said.

Describing his meetings with Ratan Tata and Azim Premji, Globe and Mail columnist Marcuss Gee said: 'With men like these behind them, India may land the last blow.'

Despite his great achievements - making the world's cheapest car Nano, and acquiring Tetley Tea, the Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus and the British Jaguar and Land Rover brands, the columnist said Tata is not given to hyperbole.

'He doesn't expect Tata to become a global brand like Sony or Coca-Cola.' But by producing the $2,500 Nano, he has set new standards in creativity, which 'other companies are rushing to imitate, not just in India but around the world'.

Referring to the Tatas' legendary honesty and strict business values, the newspaper quoted Ratan Tata as fearing that the group might abandon them once he was not on the scene.

'I think the day we do that we have lost everything,' he was quoted as saying.

Azim Premji came in for praise for his 'vision of a bold, innovative, ethical company.'

Discipline and modernity are Wipro's hallmarks, the columnist said.

Premji 'encourages managers and employees to share all possible information with each other and to disagree openly with higher ups, something that goes against the grain in hierarchical India.

'He invests heavily in training and retraining, fosters innovation and excellence, rewards success with stock and other bonuses and keeps a tight rein on costs (managers fly economy and often stay in guest houses or company suites instead of hotels).

'The result is a lean, smart, progressive company that few in China could match and that many in North America might envy.'

ECB positive about Stanford match

2008-05-25T18:16:00.001-07:00

Mumbai, April 17 - England are 'very likely' to take up an offer from Texas billionaire Allen Stanford to play a multi-million dollar Twenty20 match during their tour of West Indies next year, said England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Giles Clarke.

Clarke met Stanford at Lord's Tuesday to discuss possible joint ventures which could include the Texan having a role in any future English Premier League plus the match next year, which could be worth as much as $20million, against an All-stars West Indies XI.

'We did see Sir Allen, but a date has not been fixed for when anything will be played, or what format it will take this year or going forward into the future,' Clarke told BBC Radio Four's Today programme. 'I think that match is very likely to take place. Sir Allen is doing a huge amount for cricket in the West Indies and we are keen to help things develop there.'

With no window in the current international schedule to allow England's centrally contracted players to compete in the Indian Premier League (IPL) the ECB is eager to appease players who are keen to cash in on lucrative Twenty20 tournaments.

Clarke added: 'Of course we are also keen to give our players the chance to make a significant amount of money and these types of games can be tremendously dramatic. We are extremely interested in his ideas, but there is a long way to go.

Fight for Indian skies catches Forbes' fancy

2008-05-24T18:13:00.001-07:00

New York, April 18 - The fight for dominance of Indian skies between Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and Kingfisher owner Vijay Mallya has earned them a place in a new list called 'Battling Billionaires' published by the Forbes magazine.

Goyal, the established player in India's air travel business with a net worth of $1.4 billion, is being challenged by Mallya, the upstart who floated Kingfisher Airline only a few years ago and is worth $1.2 billion, the US business magazine said.

'The two are now going tit for tat connecting Indian cities to foreign hubs,' the magazine added in a recent story featuring eight pairs of billionaires engaged in feuding.

Anil and Mukesh Ambani's fierce competition to outdo each other in expanding their part of the Reliance empire has, however, not made the cut in the Forbes' list.

Donald Trump and Mark Cuban are in the list for a war of words that erupted after Trump alleged Cuban's short-lived television series, 'The Benefactor', had ripped off his own reality programme, 'The Apprentice'. Trump called Cuban a loser and Cuban in turn retorted by saying he felt sorry for Trump.

Larry Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, and Ernesto Bertarelli, a Swiss pharmaceutical billionaire, had a showdown in court trying to dictate rules for what they both covet - America's Cup, sailing world's most prestigious race.

Top 100 Russian billionaires worth over $522 bn: Forbes

2008-05-23T18:07:00.001-07:00

Moscow, April 19 (RIA Novosti) The number of Russian billionaires has grown to over 100, with 10 unable to make it onto Forbes Russia magazine's rich list, the business daily Vedomosti said.

According to the Forbes global rich list published in March, Moscow has become the billionaire capital of the world with 74 billionaires overtaking New York.

With a combined wealth of a staggering $522 billion, the Forbes 'golden hundred' list for Russia is topped by Oleg Deripaska, the head of holding company Basic Element, at $28.6 billion, who has seen his capital grow by over $11.8 billion from last year.

In second place is steel tycoon Alexei Mordashov, owner of Russia's largest steelmaker Severstal, with $24.5 billion, more than double his recorded wealth in 2007. Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich slipped to third spot with $24.3 billion.

The fall in the value of the dollar is believed to be one of the reasons for the sharp rise in Russian billionaires, whose numbers have jumped by 50 to 110 since 2007.

US billionaire Kerkorian muscles into Ford

2008-05-22T17:51:00.001-07:00

Detroit/Los Angeles, April 29 (DPA) US billionaire Kirk Kerkorian has bought 100 million shares of car giant Ford, according to an announcement Monday, signalling his intent to get involved with improvements at the company.

Since early April, Kerkorian's private holding Tracinda Corp has bought a 4.7 percent stake in Ford. Tracinda said the move reflects confidence in Ford's progress after it narrowed losses by 50 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Bloomberg financial news service.

In addition to the $691 million for the purchase, Kerkorian intends to spend another $170 million on 20 million more shares, which would bring the total stake to 5.6 percent.

The Tracinda move into Ford was seen as support for Ford's current leadership.

Kerkorian has a reputation in Detroit for his previous attempt to influence the running of General Motors Corp. Three years ago, Tracinda described its first investment in General Motors Corp as 'strictly passive' and voiced support for its management.

Kerkorian later built his stake as high as 9.9 percent as he stepped up pressure on CEO Rick Wagoner to take bold action to transform the company that is vying to maintain its spot as the world's largest automaker ahead of Toyota Motor Corp.

Kerkorian later sold his GM stock when GM head Rick Wagoner resisted Tracinda's push for an alliance with Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co.

Toyota in the first quarter of 2008 came out just ahead selling 159,000 more vehicles than did GM.

In the first quarter of 2008, Ford posted a profit of $100 million last week. The company is still digging out of a record $12.6 billion-loss in 2006.

American billionaire Fisher buys 3.24% stake in Celtic

2008-05-21T11:04:00.001-07:00

AN AMERICAN billionaire has bought a slice of Celtic Football Club. John J Fisher, the son of the tycoon who founded the Gap clothing chain, snapped up 3.24 per cent of the Parkhead club.

At yesterday's share price, Mr Fisher would have paid just under £630,000 for his stake. The sale will immediately spark fears that Celtic could go the way of Premiership giants Manchester United and Liverpool, who are now in American hands.Until now, ownership of Celtic has rested with the Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond.

Despite enjoying massive windfalls in his other business interests – he made a £700 million profit on the sale of London City Airport – Desmond has not sanctioned a big spending spree at Celtic.Incomer Fisher is ranked the 258th richest person in the world, with an estimated fortune of $2 billion. Educated at Princeton University, 46-year-old Fisher is the son of Donald Fisher, who started the Gap clothing chain in San Francisco in 1969. He is a major fundraiser for the Republican Party in the US and played a leading role in the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Governor of California.Father-offour Fisher lives in Presidio Heights, San Francisco, with his wife, Laura. He keeps a very low profile, though insiders say he has attended a number of games at Celtic Park.Fisher has an interest in another sport, as joint-owner of the American baseball team, the Oakland Athletics.

Peter Rafferty, president of the Affiliation of Celtic Supporters Clubs, said fans will want to know more about Mr Fisher.He said: "We are always extremely interested in anyone who is buying into the club. We are very protective of our heritage. To be honest, this has come as something of a shock today. Fans will want to find out who he is, his motives in making such an investment and his vision of the future of the club."Last month, Celtic director John Keane increased his stake in the club to almost 6.5 per cent by buying a further 1.4 million ordinary shares.In recent weeks, other Celtic shareholders have been asked if they are prepared to sell any of their holding in the Glasgow club.