In mid-February, it became known that the Quantum Endowment investment fund earned $5.5 billion in 2013. Thus, its owner George Soros grew richer by more than $15 million every day last year. Only the wealthiest people in the world could surpass the famous financier in terms of daily earnings. Among them were Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos and, of course, Warren Buffett. The latter earned $37 million per day in 2013. Lenta.ru decided to calculate who increased their wealth most actively last year, and for this, they turned not only to the most famous world rankings from Bloomberg and Forbes, but also to various lists of the rich in local media.

Despite the fact that last year Soros failed to surpass Buffett in terms of daily income, in recent history the record for the amount of funds received in one day belongs to the former. We are talking about “Black Wednesday” - September 16, 1992. On this day, a sharp drop in the value of the English pound allowed an American businessman of Hungarian origin to earn over a billion dollars.

In 2013, there were no such sharp jumps in exchange rates on the foreign exchange markets, and the basis for further growth in the wealth of the richest Americans was the stock market, which was in the green zone. Obviously, the biggest winners would be the professional stock market players who profit from owning or trading securities. Recognized as the best investor of the last 35 years, Buffett earned $12.7 billion last year, according to a study published in December 2013. Wealth-X

The billionaire controls the Berkshire Hathaway holding, which owns shares in the largest companies in the United States. Only slightly less - “only” $1.2 billion, according to Wealth-X - was earned by the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, at the end of the year. He remains the largest private shareholder of the Microsoft corporation he created, and also owns securities of the Canadian National Railway and Ecolab, a company specializing in the production of detergents and disinfectants.

Bloomberg disagrees with Wealth-X. In his ranking of billionaires, which is updated daily, at the beginning of 2014 Gates was in the lead, having risen in price by $15.8 billion. Adelson came in second place. He increased his wealth by $14.4 billion. Such rapid growth is explained by an increase in stock prices of his company, Las Vegas Sands. Over the year they have risen in price by 71 percent. Interestingly, Soros is not mentioned among the leaders in the ranking of the most actively increasing their wealth in 2013, compiled by Bloomberg. to According the agency, for the period from January 1 to December 31 last year, Soros became richer by “only” $1.4 billion.

Gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson took third place in the same ranking - his fortune increased by $11.4 billion. The fourth place in terms of wealth growth in 2013 in Wealth-X was awarded to the creator of the online retailer Amazon, Jeff Bezos. At the end of last year, he became richer by $11.3 billion. Bezos was ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who became richer by $10.5 billion, as well as two Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Each of them received $9.3 billion in a year. Investor Carl Icahn rounded out the top ten with earnings of $7.2 billion.

The multibillion-dollar incomes of leading businessmen associated with the stock market have one significant drawback. Like the stock market, they can be unstable. At the beginning of February, The Wall Street Journal published its ranking of the leaders of the largest corporations who profited from the growth in the value of their companies' shares. Buffett was the leader in this list in 2013. However, it has lost $2.4 billion since the start of 2014 due to declining Berkshire Hathaway stock prices. Another example of a sharp drop in asset values is the Japanese SoftBank, which is owned by one of the richest citizens of this country, Masayoshi Sonu. Since the beginning of 2014, the company's capitalization has decreased by $24 billion. However, the record holder for this indicator is still Bill Gates. Between September 1999 and September 2000, he became $28 billion poorer as Microsoft's stock price fell.

While the growth of the US stock market has become a source of windfall profits for major American businessmen, 2013 turned out to be just as favorable for entrepreneurs in other regions and countries.

In Asia, the leader in earnings last year was the already mentioned Japanese Masayoshi Son. Wealth-X believes that he managed to increase his capital from $10.3 billion to $19.1 billion. The increase in the value of Son's assets is associated with the acquisition of the American mobile operator Spring Nextel by SoftBank in the summer of 2013. The transaction cost was $21.6 billion. However, in 2014, Son risks becoming the main loser of the rating: the shares of his enterprises are breaking records of decline in value.

Massaesi Son

The richest man in Asia, Lui Che Wu, was only slightly behind Son last year. The owner of casinos and hotels, united in the Galaxy Entertainment Group, became even richer - by $8.3 billion. In December 2013, Wealth-X experts estimated his fortune at $19.6 billion. Already at the beginning of 2014, Bloomberg estimated that Wu's assets were valued at $29.6 billion.

Canada and Australia are missing from the top ten of the Wealth-X rankings, but they are closely followed by local media. For example, at the end of last year, Canadian Business presented its list of the most successful businessmen, calculating the percentage growth rate of their wealth. The rating included, for example, David Thomson, the head of the Thomson family, which owns the Thomson Reuters news agency, as well as shares in the Globe and Mail newspaper. In 2013, the value of its assets increased by 30 percent and reached 26.1 billion. The Weston family, led by Galen Weston, became almost 25 percent richer, bringing the value of their assets, mostly concentrated in retail, to $10.4 billion. The publication also noted Quebec billionaire Alain Bouchard, who owns the Alimentation Couche-Tard department store chain. Over the year, his fortune increased by 48 percent and now reaches $1.54 billion.

Interestingly, Hong Kong businessman Lawrence Ho was also included in the Canadian Business ranking. He is involved in the development of hotels and casinos in Asia, but was educated in Canada, which allowed the publication to consider him “one of their own.” Canadian Business estimates he increased his wealth by 124 percent in 2013. At the end of last year it reached $1.27 billion.

The assets of Australia's richest men, Gina Rinehart and Ivan Glasenberg, have remained stable over the past year. Billionaire James Packer became the leader in capital gains. If in 2012 his fortune was estimated at $5.21 billion, then in May 2013 it was worth six billion, and at the end of last year it was worth $7.2 billion. Experts believe that the markets reacted positively to the decision of the Australian authorities to abandon the antitrust investigation into companies owned by Packer. Another leader in wealth growth in Australia was the Peric family. She owns the food company Fredom Foods Group. Over the year, her shares have risen in price by 270 percent, and Perich now owns assets worth more than a billion dollars.

Even less often than Australians or Canadians, you can find representatives of African states in various rankings of “official” billionaires. At the same time, in a number of indicators they are often ahead of even their American “colleagues”. in 2013 For example, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote increased his wealth by 79 percent . His assets are now valued at $22.9 billion. This is 10.1 billion more than at the beginning of last year. That is, if a Nigerian participated in the Wealth-X rating, then in terms of the rate of enrichment he would be ahead of Icahn and the founders of Google.

Isabel dos 1/2 Santos

However, in terms of the rate of capital growth per year, Dangote cannot compare with the Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos (she is the daughter of the long-time ruler of this state, Jose dos Santos). Forbes admitted that they had previously underestimated Isabel’s assets and immediately increased their value by 311 percent - to $3.7 billion.

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Assessing the fortunes of major businessmen and compiling various ratings in recent years has turned into an independent industry, which can easily be confused with some genre in the entertainment industry. From time to time, various consulting companies and leading banks present their versions of ratings, for which this is a good opportunity to introduce themselves to potential clients. Now you can even find out about the wealth of the most famous businessmen in real time. This opportunity is offered by Bloomberg and Forbes .

But despite their increasingly entertaining nature, rankings of the richest entrepreneurs remain fundamentally an economic phenomenon. In business media, they are used to illustrate the advantages or disadvantages of various business strategies or future predictions. The ratings are based on stock market data, which is considered one of the indicators of the state of the entire economy. Thus, a significant increase in the wealth of billionaires around the world in 2013 may indirectly indicate that the crisis and stagnation are behind us.

Through Soros to the Gates