Dangote, Rabiu, Adenuga make list of Forbes 2023 World’s billionaire rankings
images-68
A total 2460 individuals including three Nigerians appeared in the Forbes’ world’s billionaires list for 2023.
The list, made public on Tuesday, April 4, came with a couple of surprises. This was more so since the last year when incidences of falling stocks, wounded some unicorns while rising interest rates translated into a down year for many of the world’s richest people.
According to Forbes records, the 25 richest people in the world are worth a collective $2.1 trillion, down by a combined $200 billion from $2.3 trillion in 2022.
Luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault‘s net worth surged by $53 billion to $211billion since last year, a bigger gain than anyone on the planet, to climb to the number one spot for the first time ever on the rise of share in his company, LVMH. Former world’s richest man, Elon Musk, slipped to second position after his worth reduced by $39billion due to his purchase of social messaging app, Twitter.
However, one of the 2023 billionaire surprises however is the emergence of BUA Group Chairman Abdul Samad Rabiu, who moved from $7.6billion a few months ago, to become the 249th richest person in the world and closing in on overtaking the third richest man in Africa, Nicky Oppenheimer who stands at $8.4billion. Rabiu’s latest worth is put at $8.2billion. From $1.6billion in 2019, Forbes recorded that by 2022 his net worth was at $6.9billion dollars and from there has jumped to $8.2billion in April 2023.
Sixty two –year old Abdul Samad Rabiu is essentially into cement and sugar as well as real estate and is building sub-saharan Africa’s second largest refinery and petrochemicals plant in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria.
Meanwhile Aliko Dangote has retained his position as the wealthiest person of African descent.
After climbing to $14billion in 2022, his wealth is estimated to be around $14.2billion according to the latest.
Dangote is presently the 125th richest man in the world and is easily the largest cement producer in Africa. He also has his hands in other businesses including pastries, sugar, agriculture auto assembly and other areas of manufacturing.
For Mike Adenuga, the third Nigerian on the African billionaire’s list, business has not been cosy. He dropped from $7.3billion in 2022 to $6.1billion this year. The last couple of years have seen him move up and down the wealthiest’ scale. He’s now the 418th richest in the world at 58.
Dangote, Rabiu, Adenuga make list of Forbes 2023 World’s billionaires.
These are the only three Nigerians that made the list.
One other surprise name on the list however is 90-yr old Nathan Kirsh from tiny African Country of Swaziland. He is said to worth 6.5billion dollars, thus becoming the 6th ranked African billionaire, now above Mike Adenuga. He is believed to be into real estate retail and fashion.
It was the first time he would be featured as an African billionaire.
Methodology: According to Forbes, their ‘World’s Billionaires list is a snapshot of wealth using stock prices and exchange rates from March 10, 2023. Some people become richer or poorer within days of publication. We list individuals rather than multigenerational families who share fortunes, though we include wealth belonging to a billionaire’s spouse and children if that person is the founder of the fortune’.
‘For non-founders, we previously listed couples and family members together in certain cases; this year, we separated these shared fortunes into individual list members, marked “split family fortune.” For Russian billionaires, fortunes were calculated using ownership structures from February 2022, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and before many made transfers of assets to managers, friends and others in an effort to protect their holdings from sanctions’.
‘We value a variety of assets, including private companies, real estate, art and more. We don’t pretend to know each billionaire’s private balance sheet (though some provide it). When documentation isn’t supplied or available, we discount fortunes’.
Source: The Sun
