Economic crisis eats off Forbes' 2009 billionaire list _English

Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

by Xinhua writer Yang Lei

NEW YORK, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The worst economic crisis in decades has taken its toll on billionaires, the richest people in the world. The number of such people has decreased and their wealth has shrunk by nearly half.

Forbes Magazine's 2009 list of the world's billionaires saw the total number of them drop to 793 from 1,125 in 2008, the first year-to-year decrease since 2003.

Steve Forbes, chairman, CEO and editor-in-chief of the Forbes Magazine, attends a news conference in New York, the U.S., on March 11, 2009. Forbes Magazine's 2009 list of the world's billionaires saw the total number of them drop to 793 from 1,125 in 2008, the first year-to-year decrease since 2003. Bill Gates returned to the top of the list with a total net worth of 40 billion dollars. Ironically, he reclaimed the crown because he suffered less loss than Warren Buffett, last year's richest man. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)
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And the total wealth on this year's list registered 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars, down from 4.4 trillion last year, reducing more than 45 percent and marking the worst reading since Forbes began compiling the list.

"Billionaire Bust", the bold red title on the cover of this month's Forbes special issue, demonstrated how hard the crisis had struck on the richest people on the planet.

Bill Gates returned to the top of the list with a total net worth of 40 billion dollars. Ironically, he reclaimed the crown because he suffered less loss than Warren Buffett, last year's richest man.

Buffett lost 25 billion dollars due to the decline in value of his Berkshire Hathaway stock, while Gates lost 18 billion dollars. Mexican telecom titan Carlos Slim Helu, last year's number two, slipped to the third place. The top three on Forbes' 2009 list have lost a combined 68 billion dollars in the past year.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who makes a salary of 1 dollar per year as mayor, is the only one among the top 20 whose net worth has risen during the past year. This is due to a reevaluation of Bloomberg LP: the mayor bought a 20-percent stake from cash-strapped Merrill Lynch last July for 4.5 billion dollars.

Steve Forbes, chairman, CEO and editor-in-chief of the Forbes Magazine, said the U.S. government's monetary and regulatory policies had made the crisis worse.

"If you get rid of mark-to-market (accounting rule), you will see the market start to thaw, the freeze will start to ease. And I think you will see, among other things, not only financial market will move up and then the rest of economy will move up. Next year you will have more billionaires," Forbes told Xinhua.

Billionaires in banking industry belong to the biggest category hit hard by the crisis with well-known figures like former American International Group (AIG) CEO Maurice Greenberg and former head of Citigroup Sandy Weill falling off the list.

Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, former Icelandic billionaire, was wiped out when his biggest holding, Landsbanki, was nationalized in October 2008. He is trying to sell his English soccer team West Ham United F.C. in a bid to pay off debts.

The 2009 list represents citizens from 53 countries and regions. Americans once again dominate the super rich, occupying half of the top 20 spots, up from only four last year.

"China is one of the brighter spots," Luisa Kroll, senior editor of Forbes, told Xinhua. Though the total number of billionaires from the Chinese mainland dropped from 42 to 28, their collective wealth shrank much less than those in other emerging economies like India and Turkey. Meanwhile, total number of billionaires from Russia decreased to 32 from last year's 87, echoing the plunging oil prices.

It is the 23rd annual ranking of the world's billionaires by the Forbes Magazine. Each person's total net worth is measured in U.S. dollar, based on the closing stock prices of the stock exchanges on which each person's company is listed, and exchange rates as of Feb. 13, 2009.