Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 4, 1993 TAG: 9310040022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Buffett, 63, rode a roughly 70 percent increase in the stock price of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. investment company to rise from eigth place and unseat Microsoft's Bill Gates as the nation's wealthiest person, Forbes magazine reported Sunday.
The magazine's annual Forbes 400 ranking appears in its Oct. 18 issue.
Buffett is considered a living investment legend whose utterances can move the stock market. He also defies the stereotype of the mega-rich, wearing rumpled clothes and driving his own car.
He rarely vacations, lives in a nondescript house and relaxes by munching Cracker Jack and watching the Omaha Royals, the minor league baseball team he co-owns.
In recent years, Buffett was perhaps best known for rescuing Salomon Inc., the venerable Wall Street brokerage involved in a 1991 Treasury bond scandal.
Gates - who at 36 was the youngest person to ever top the list, in the 1992 Forbes ranking - slipped to second place this year with an estimated net worth of $6.165 billion, down from $6.3 billion.
The founder of Microsoft Corp. makes money from every Kluge computer that uses MS-DOS - the world's most widely used software.
Entertainment mogul John Kluge also fell back one spot to third. Kluge, of Charlottesville, Va., topped the rankings from 1989-91. His estimated worth of $5.9 billion was $300 million better than Sumner Murray Redstone, who, at No. 4, was one of two newcomers to the Top 10. Fellow media magnate Rupert Murdoch was 10th, up from 15th.
by CNB