New energy king LI hejun steals crown of china number one from jack ma

Technology produced the most billionaires – 297, accounting for 11% of the entire list. 49 were newcomers, coming from Graham Holding, Dogan Holding, DB Corp, King Entertainment, Uber, Bet 365 and so on. Other tech stocks that shot up include JD.COM (346%), Xinwei Telecom (324%), Alibaba (245%), Xiaomi (198%), YonYou (123%), Baidu (80%), Excel (62%), Verlagsgruppe (60%) and Bharti Airtel (50%).

The US has the most number of tech billionaires, followed by China. The US has added more women tech billionaires, led by Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook. The richest tech billionaire is Laurene Powell Jobs (US$18bn, rank 70), widow of Steve Jobs.

Other Points of Note

The youngest is Elizabeth Holmes, 30, of Theranos, a revolutionary blood analytics company based in USA. Theranos board members include 3 former cabinet secretaries, 2 former senators, a retired CentCom Commander, a retired Navy admiral and a former director for Centre of Disease Control and Prevention.

Nicholas Woodman, an amateur photographer, founded GoPro which went public last year, netting Woodman US$1.9bn.

Valued at US$11bn, Shiv Nadar, 69, of HCL is an aggressive mission to impart literacy in India, and is one of the Top 3 philanthropists in India.

Ones to watch. Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Xiaomi and Dropbox are in the pipeline for big tech IPO deals expected in 2015.

Women. More than one in ten are female, 279 women in total. 69 are self-made of which 35 are from China, 16 from USA and 7 from the UK. The oldest is from China, Yik-Chun Koo Wang, 98, co-founder of Johnson Electric. The youngest is Elizabeth Holmes, 30, of Theranos, a healthcare technology company in the USA.

Ones to watch. Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Xiaomi and Dropbox are in the pipeline for big tech IPO deals expected in 2015.

Jack Ma & family shot up to 33 after Alibaba’s record-breaking US$25bn IPO in New York in September 2014. Other billionaires of interest minted through IPO include Rocket Internet.

Politically active. Charles and David Koch fund political activities that promote free market principles. Saad Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon, ranks 1094. 6 ruling royal families, including Saudi Arabia, Brunei, UAE, Morocco, Thailand and Liechtenstein.

121 billionaires own Fortune Global 500 companies, 74 from USA, 10 from China.

Billion dollar divorce: Sue Ann Hamm received a US$1bn settlement from Harold Hamm after their 23 year marriage, ranking her in her own right at number 1911.

Richest family in world. Were the Wal-mart fortunes to be combined, the Walton family would have US$138bn, up US$9bn this year, making them the richest family in the world by far.

The 41-year old Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin retains their fort in Top 20, despite a stagnant year for Google.

Gérard Mulliez & family saw his wealth increase 25%, pushing him up 11 places to 18, thanks to a strong performance of Auchan, a large retailer in Europe.
Carl Icahn, 78. The legendary investor had a fantastic run this year, improving 66% to US$29bn and up 26 places to number 22.
Big philanthropy. Jack Ma and Joe Tsai of Alibaba donated US$2.4bn worth of Alibaba stock. Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan have donated US$2bn to charity. Ronnie Chan, of Hang Lung Properties, donated US$350 million to Harvard Medical School.

Jim Breyer of Accel Partners in the USA saw his wealth rise 130%. Breyer was an early investor in Facebook & Real Networks.

Oldest. The oldest billionaires on the list are 99 year old David Rockefeller Sr (US$1.4bn, rank 1392) and Taiwanese Lin Yu-Chia (US$1.1bn, rank 1760), followed by two 98 year old billionaires; investor Henry Hillman ($2.4bn, rank 594) and Chinese Yik-Chun Koo Wang (US$2.7bn, rank 446).

16 billionaires from last year’s Hurun Global Rich List died at the relatively advanced age of 85. They included:

Name	Company	Age
Karl Albrecht	Aldi Sud	94
Antonio Ermirio de Moraes & family	Votorantim Participacoes	86
Harold Simmons	Valhi	83
Tsai Wan-Tsai & family	Fubon	85
S. Truett Cathy	Chick - Fil - A	93
Paul Desmarais	Power Financial Oration	88
Patrick McGovern	IDG	77
Malcolm Glazer & family	Manchester United	86
Paul Ramsay	Ramsay Health Care	78
David Azrieli & family	Azrieli Group	92
Robert Holding	Sinclair Oil	88
George Mitchell	Devon Energy Oration	95
Michael Heisley Sr	Heico Companies	77
William C. Ford Sr	Ford Motor	89
Emilio Yap	Phil Trust Bank	89
Abdul Razzaq Yaqoob & family	ARY Group	70

Source: Hurun Research Institute 2015

Billionaires by Continent – Hurun Global Rich List 2015

56% of new billionaires reside in Asia. Asia is drawing away from North America with 191 new billionaires to take it to 943 individuals, followed by North America with 589 billionaires and Europe 401.

Oceania is the only continent where a woman leads the billionaires’ list. (Georgina Rinehart, US$16bn).

With a cumulative net worth of US$80bn, Africa has 31 billionaires on the Hurun Global Rich List 2015. Aliko Dangote, 57, of Dangote Cements leads the pack with US$17bn, breaking into the Top 100. Brahim Zniber, 94, of Belvedere Winery is a new face on the list with US$6.8bn.

	Continent	No. of billionaires	Change in No of billionaires YoY	Combined wealth US$ Bn
1	Asia	943	119	2523
2	North America	589	61	2385
3	Europe	401	29	1445
4	South America	92	11	267
5	Oceania	33	2	75
6	Africa	31	-2	80

Source: Hurun Global Rich List 2015

European Union – A quick look

The EU has 323 billionaires this year. Average age of billionaires in the EU is 65, one year higher than the overall list.

Billionaires by EU country

Country	No. of Billionaires	Average Age	Top Industry
UK	80	65.1	Retail
Germany	72	64.6	Food & Beverages
France	46	66.7	Luxury Goods
Italy	27	66.9	Retail
Spain	19	68.1	Real Estate
Austria	16	68.9	Manufacturing
Denmark	12	60.7	Manufacturing
Netherlands	12	69.7	Food & Beverages
Sweden	11	64.8	Retail

Source: Hurun Research Institute

Chinese Diaspora: Where they live – Hurun Global Rich List

Chinese diaspora. 529 billionaires are of Chinese origin. Outside of Greater China, the Chinese diaspora are based predominantly in South East Asia, led by Singapore and Indonesia.

8 are based in the USA: John Tu and David Sun, both of Kingston Technology, Roger Wang of Golden Eagle, Jerry Yang of Yahoo!, Andrew & Peggy Cherng of Panda Express, Chen Tei-Fu of Sunrider and Cher Wang & Chen Wen-Chi of HTC, Duan Yongping of BBK.

	Residence	No. of Billionaires
1	Greater China	478
2	Singapore	14
3	Indonesia	10
4	USA	8
5	Malaysia	7
6	Philippines	6
7	Thailand	5
8	Australia	1

Source: Hurun Global Rich List 2015

Stats

The cut-off required for the Top 100 rose slightly, whilst for the Top 200, 500 and 1000 was down.

Rank on List	2015 Cut-off required US$bn	2014 Cut-off required US$bn	2013 Cut-off required US$bn
10	36	36	30
100	12	11.5	10.5
200	5.9	6.9	6.1
500	2.6	3.4	2.9
1000	1.9	2	1.5

Source: Hurun Global Rich List 2015

Currency fluctuations

Global currency witnessed a highly volatile year with an average 14% drop against the US Dollar. The Ukrainian Hryvnia dropped 49% to the US dollar, followed by Russian Rouble.

Currency fluctuations against the US Dollar – Hurun Global Rich List 2015

	Country	% drop in currency	% Change in Wealth
1	Ukraine	49%	-14%
2	Russia	46%	-22%
3	Argentina	41%	-24%
4	Norway	27%	-55%
5	Japan	26%	-18%
6	Brazil	24%	-21%
7	Colombia	24%	20%
8	South Africa	24%	-29%
9	Turkey	23%	-11%
10	Australia	23%	-30%

Source: Hurun Global Rich List 2015

Stock Exchanges

China has more billionaires listed on its stock exchanges than the USA, leading with 290 compared with 220 billionaires listed in the USA. The Chinese Shenzhen had a good year, with a gain of 42%, followed by India (32%) and Indonesia (21%). NYSE returned 9% while London Stock Exchange returned a declined growth of -3%.

Chinese Star Signs

Billionaires born in the years of the snake and horse lead the way. Billionaires born in the Year of the Sheep, which starts on 19 February, come in at 6^th place.

	Star Sign	%
1	Snake	9.5%
2	Horse	9.2%
3	Dragon	9.0%
3	Ox	9.0%
5	Rabbit	8.8%
6	Sheep	8.3%
7	Monkey	8.1%
8	Rat	8.0%
9	Dog	7.8%
10	Tiger	7.7%
11	Pig	7.4%
12	Rooster	7.2%