Fifty-one-year-old founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has risen through the ranks to become the third richest man in the United States with a net worth of $53.2 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos now ranks third after Bill Gates as the richest man in the US, followed by Warren Buffet who is number two. Bezos overtook brothers Charles and David Koch to rank third in the US after his business added $2.9 billion fortune on Friday.
The fortunes of Bezos rose 86% this year and investors have applauded the company’s growth and cloud segment. Amazon made $24.6 billion in a year-to-date rise that is much more than the combined profits of Facebook’s and Google’s founders.
On Thursday, Amazon’s shares rose over $600 in after-hours trading and closed on Friday at $55.03, making Bezos the fifth-richest man in the world, even though he was in the 20th position as at January 1 this year.
Alice, Christy, Jim, and Rob Walton own Wal-Mart Stores and control over half of its shares, yet their combined worth suffered a $43.4 billion loss in spite of the fact that they invested heavily in stores and e-commerce just to boost sales at their retail stores.
A chief investment officer at Tigress Financial Partners, Ivan Feinseth, noted that people don’t aspire to shop at Wal-Mart, not when the economy is good. He added that people stop shopping at Wal-Mart when incomes go up but basically stay with Amazon the year round.
The total shares of Amazon is only 93% of what Bezos is now worth in net. But then the Koch family fortune covers a range of companies which include paper producer Georgia-Pacific LLC, oil businesses Flint Hill Resources LLC and Koch Pipeline Company LP, as well as manufacturers of fertilizers, polymers and fibers. The asset values of the family was arrived at using revenue of $115 billion that’s reported on the website of holding company Koch Industries Inc.
Founder of Inditex SA, Amancio Ortega of Spain, is the second-best performing billionaire in 2015 with an addition of $16.3 billion which represents 26.6% gain for the world’s largest clothing retailer. China’s richest individual, Wang Jianlin, added about $11.8 billion which represents a 47% increase. This makes Ortega the second-richest man in the world with a net worth of $77.3 billion while Wang stays at 13th with a net worth of $37 billion.
