- The world's richest person, Bill Gates,
has become the first $100bn man due to the surge in Wall Street stock prices.
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- As the Nasdaq share index set new records
this week, Mr Gates saw his 20% share in Microsoft swell by $1bn, pushing
his personal wealth into 12 figures.
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- With each of his one billion-plus shares
in the Seattle-based software giant worth $93 (about £56), the 43-year-old's
fortune could give most medium-sized national economies a run for their
money.
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- He also has shareholdings in several
other companies including $9bn invested in satellite ventures.
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- The stage is now set for Mr Gates to
become the world's first trillionaire.
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- The Daily Telegraph reports that having
made about $4,566,000 for every hour of the past year, and with his wealth
growing at the 61% compound annual rate it has enjoyed so far, he will
hit the $1,000,000,000,000 mark in 2004.
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- The paper also states that his current
wealth exceeds the economic output of all but the 18 wealthiest nations.
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- In fact, if his wealth continues to snowball,
his fortune will overtake Britain's gross national product in 2005.
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- The latest news of Mr Gates's almost
unfathomable personal wealth comes a few weeks after the public was granted
an unprecedented insight into his financial affairs.
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- In an interview with Fortune Magazine,
his fund manager Michael Larson said that except, of course, for Microsoft,
this doyen of the computer industry generally gave Internet and technology
shares a wide berth.
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- Mr Larson, who has managed the Gates
finances since 1993, said the man who started off building computers in
his garage was looking to cable TV companies and biotechnology firms for
good returns in the future.
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- He has also channelled $9bn into a venture
to surround the world with a network of 288 low-level satellites, which
is due to launch around 2003.
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- However, these projects excepted, Mr
Gates and Mr Larson have taken a rather unadventurous approach to investing
the fortune.
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- "The point wasn't for Bill to become
richer than the Sultan of Brunei," said Mr Larson.
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- Apart from Microsoft, most of Mr Gates's
assets are held in relatively secure investments such as government and
corporate bonds.
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- Last year he invested $250m in Cliveden
hotels group which owns the former Astor family home and was the scene
of the of the 1960s Profumo scandal.
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