Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 10, 1990 TAG: 9007100477
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The new Forbes magazine list of the world's billionaires includes 62 American individuals and 37 U.S. families.
John Werner Kluge, who lives in Albemarle County, Va., remained the richest American, according to Forbes. The founder of broadcasting's Metromedia is worth an estimated $5.2 billion.
Trump was bounced from the list as the value of his real estate and airline empire plummeted. Forbes put his net worth last year at $1.7 billion. In April, the magazine said, he was worth about $500 million. Some sources peg it even lower.
Drug dealers, on the other hand, made the cut. Among billionaires listed by the magazine in its July 23 issue are Colombia's Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the head of the Medellin cocaine cartel, at about $3 billion, and Colombia's Ochoa family, at about $2 billion.
Forbes said the world's wealthiest person for the fourth straight year was Yoshiaki Tsutsumi of Japan. His railroad and real estate empire, which includes golf courses, ski resorts and hotels, was estimated at $16 billion, up about $1 billion from last year.
That estimate was far greater than that of rival business magazine Fortune, which put Tsutsumi's net worth at $3.1 billion last September.
Fortune said the world's richest person is the Sultan of Brunei, at $25 billion. Forbes excludes heads of state and royal families from consideration because their wealth "derives more from political heritage than from economic effort."
The list includes 40 Japanese individuals or families.
Following the 56-year-old Tsutsumi on the Forbes list was Japanese developer Taikichiro Mori, a former economics professor who owns 78 office buildings. Forbes put his net worth at $14.6 billion.
Ranked third was the family of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, the third-largest U.S. retail chain. Forbes estimates that the Waltons, who also were third last year, are worth $13.3 billion, up from $8.7 billion in 1989.
America's du Pont family was fourth, with a net worth estimated at $10 billion. They were followed by Hans and Gad Rausing, two Swedish brothers who control a packaging empire worth $9.6 billion.
Kitaro Watanabe, a Japanese real estate owner, was sixth at $9.2 billion. He was followed by Canada's Reichmann brothers, owners of the Olympia & York real estate company, at $9 billion.
Kenkichi Nakajima and his family, founder of Japan's largest maker of pachinko machines, a gambling game similar to pinball, were eighth at $8.4 billion.
South Korea's Shin Kyuk-ho, who owns a candy and real estate empire, was ninth at $7 billion to $8 billion; and Forrest Mars and family of the United States, of Mars candy fame, were 10th at an estimated $6 billion.
Forbes said it identified 271 billionaire individuals or families worldwide, up from 226 last year.
by CNB