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Warren Buffett has knocked his friend and Microsoft founder off the top spot as the world's richest man at a time of great financial turmoil and as Buffett has begun to siphon off part of his fortune to charity, Forbes magazine says.
Buffett, the famed US investor who heads Berkshire Hathaway, is estimated to be worth US$62 billion ($77.2 billion) in the magazine's annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people.
Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim came in second with an estimated worth of US$60 billion, pushing Gates to third place after 13 years of holding the No 1 spot.
The magazine estimated Gates' worth at US$58 billion.
Chief executive of Forbes Magazines Steve Forbes said Buffett's fortune climbed US$10 billion in the last calendar year.
"Even though he is giving away a piece of his fortune each year, the stock of Berkshire Hathaway, the source of Warren Buffet's wealth, has been rising very rapidly."
Buffett in June 2006 announced plans to give 85 per cent of his fortune away, granting it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities.
Bill Gates serves on the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway and is a long-time bridge buddy of Buffett's. Gates has also given a substantial amount of his fortune to the foundation.
Buffett, often called the Sage of Omaha, has been lauded among investors for his preference for investing in larger companies with easy-to-understand businesses, large or dominant market share, consistent earnings and strong management.
In the early 1960s, Buffett started to invest in Berkshire, then a struggling textile maker, and took it over in 1965. Since then, he has transformed it into a holding company for more than 50 companies, ranging from Benjamin Moore paint and Dairy Queen ice cream to Fruit of the Loom underwear and Ginsu knives.
Gates has held the No 1 spot since 1995, when he unseated Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, a Japanese real estate tycoon. Tsutsumi fell off the billionaire's list last year after receiving a suspended prison sentence for falsifying financial statements and insider trading in 2005.
Slim built his fortune by privatising former Mexican state telephone monopoly Telmex. America Movil, a Telmex spin-off, is now Slim's flagship business and Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.
The collective net worth of the world's 1125 billionaires soared to US$4.4 trillion.
The list of billionaires has almost doubled in the past four years, Forbes said. There were 469 US billionaires, worth a combined US$1.6 trillion, while the 656 billionaires who live outside the United States are worth US$2.8 trillion.
Russia came in second place as home to 87 billionaires and Moscow is now the world's billionaire centre, the magazine said. The Russian capital is now home to more billionaires than New York City.
India, China and Turkey also saw large gains in numbers of billionaires.
The world's youngest billionaire is 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking website Facebook.
The magazine estimated his worth at US$1.5 billion and said that he was the youngest self-made billionaire to ever appear in the Forbes billionaire rankings.
China's insatiable demand for iron ore has propelled mining entrepreneur Andrew Forrest (Fortescue Metals) up the charts to Australia's richest billionaire, usurping friend and gaming and media mogul James Packer. Westfield's Frank Lowy rounded out the top three.
Fourteen Australians made the Forbes list this year, topped by Forrest, who is ranked at 145 with an estimated net worth of US$6.5 billion.
- REUTERS, AAP
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