TOP 10 Billionaires In The World

1. Carlos Slim Helu & family ($73 B)

Carlos Slim Helu is the world's richest man for the fourth year in a row. He clocks in at $4 billion more than a year ago, thanks to surging stock prices at his financial arm, Grupo Financiero Inbursa, and at his Grupo Carso industrial and retail giant. Pan-Latin American mobile telecom outfit America Movil remains his most valuable holding at $36.3 billion; the company spread its wings to Europe in the past year, buying pieces of Dutch telecom company KPN and Telekom Austria. Other listed companies focus on mining, real estate and infrastructure. Slim does not hold an executive position at any of the companies he controls, but remains engaged and advises on strategy. He put his sons, Carlos, Marco Antonio and Patrick, in charge of the industrial, finance and telecom companies he controls.In September America Movil bought stakes in two Mexican professional soccer teams; in November Slim bought a majority of struggling Spanish soccer team Real Oviedo. Early 2013 saw a surge in Slim's philanthropic activity. The Carlos Slim Foundation pledged to translate into Spanish 1,000 videos from the Khan Academy education nonprofit website. Slim also hosted Bill Gates in late February; the two men announced they are funding research to improve farmers' yields and reduce hunger.

2. Bill Gates ($67 B)

Bill Gates, the world's most generous person, says that as long as he helps eradicate deadly diseases like polio and malaria, he doesn't care if he's forgotten after his death. Not that there's any chance of that: Gates has already given more than $28 billion, but said in his fifth annual letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that the total amount invested is less important than precise measures of impact, like child mortality rates. Gates has been spreading his gospel to other billionaires near and far: he and good friend Warren Buffett recently added 12 non-Americans to their Giving Pledge, including the U.K.'s Richard Branson and India's Azim Premji, bumping the total to 105 high net worth individuals. He also partnered with Carlos Slim to build a new $25 million agricultural research center in Mexico. Gates' net worth increased $6 billion to $67 billion in the past year - with no help from the company he cofounded, Microsoft, in which he still has a 5% stock. Most of his fortune these days is spread across private equity, bonds, and stocks like hygiene tech firm Ecolab, Mexican TV broadcaster Televisa, and Latin America's largest beverage company FEMSA. In February, Gates said the only thing left on his bucket list was, "Don't die."

3. Amancio Ortega ($57 B)

Spain's Amancio Ortega is the year's biggest gainer, up $19.5 billion. He moves into the top three among the world's richest for the first time. He stepped down as chairman of Inditex, best known for its Zara brand, in 2011, but still owns nearly 60% of its shares, which soared 50% year-over-year on record profits. Ortega also has a real estate portfolio, much of it acquired at bargain prices during the financial downturn, estimated to be worth more than $4 billion. Among his properties: the iconic Torre Picasso, a 43-story skyscraper in Madrid (Google is a tenant), which he purchased from billionaire Esther Koplowitz in 2011. He also owns buildings in Madrid, London, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. A railway worker's son, he started as a gofer in a shirt store. With then-wife Rosalia Mera, also a billionaire, he started making dressing gowns and lingerie in their living room. In December 2012, Spanish media reported that Ortega paid half a million dollars to prevent paparazzi from publishing photos of his daughter Marta and her equestrian husband Sergio Alvarez on their honeymoon in Cambodia and Australia. Marta, who works for Inditex, is reportedly expecting a baby boy.

4. Warren Buffett (53.5 B)

Warren Buffett struck again in February, announcing a deal with Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann's 3G Capital to snap up iconic ketchup producer H.J. Heinz Co. for $23.2 billion. It wasn't the only deal for Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway lately. In November 2012 Berkshire acquired Omaha-based party supplier Oriental Trading Co. and in December 2012 the company purchased $1.2 billion of its own stock from "the estate of a longtime shareholder." Buffett completed radiation treatment for prostate cancer last summer, five months after he notified Berkshire Hathaway shareholders of his condition, assuring them that it was "not remotely life-threatening." Still, he has gotten his house in order: In December 2011 he chose his farmer son, Howard, as the future non-executive chairman and "guardian of the firm's values." In February 2012 he said he'd picked his CEO replacement but has declined to give a name. Buffett has also been busy expanding his philanthropy. He gave $1.5 billion to the Gates Foundation in July 2012, bringing his lifetime giving to nearly $17.3 billion. On his birthday in August 2012 Buffett pledged $3 billion of stock to his children's foundations. After studying under Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School, Buffett offered to work for his former professor's investment partnership, Graham-Newman Corporation, for free. According to Buffett, "he turned me down as overvalued." It was only after several years of "pestering" that the father of value investing agreed to take on the younger man in 1954. When Graham retired two years later, Buffett returned to Nebraska to launch his own partnership. In 1962 Buffett began buying up shares of a struggling textile company called Berkshire Hathaway. Though Buffett has called Berkshire "the dumbest stock" he ever bought, the firm has long since shed its textile assets and today serves as Buffett's famed investment vehicle.

5. Larry Ellison ($43 B)

In the past year, Larry Ellison, America's third richest man, has been on a real estate buying spree. In June, he bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai from David Murdock. That purchase, for a reported $500 million or more, gave Ellison almost all of the 141-square mile island, including two resort hotels and a housing development. Adding to his real estate purchases, Ellison has also been active in the Los Angeles mansion market, purchasing two Malibu homes in October and January for a combined $55 million. Ellison can afford all of it, too. As of February, his shares of Oracle are up more than 20% year-over-year. Most recently, Ellison, long an admirer of NBA basketball franchises, was rumored to be exploring a deal to purchase the Sacramento Kings to prevent them from moving to Seattle. Ellison's other passion, yachting, will make its way into San Francisco this year as the 2013 America's Cup race lands in the city. Ellison, who signed on to the Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge in 2010, has thus far donated $445 million, mostly via Oracle stock, to his Ellison Medical Foundation, which supports research on aging and age-related diseases. His latest gift to the foundation was 1.6 million shares of Oracle--worth $45 million--in April 2012.

6. Charles Koch ($34 B)

The world's sixth-richest person (tied with brother David) built his fortune around refining and chemicals, the right places to be last year amid falling natural-gas prices and recovering demand. Koch Industries, with an estimated $115 billion in sales, climbed more than $20 billion in value, mostly on surging refining profits but also improving operations at Koch's large Georgia-Pacific unit. Things didn't go so well on the political front: Charles, a die-hard libertarian, failed in his quest to unseat President Barack Obama as president.

7. David Koch ($34 B)

Tied with older brother Charles as the world's sixth-richest person, David runs the chemical equipment side of Koch Industries from his home in New York. His wealth climbed $9 billion last year, mostly on surging refining and chemical profits as the price of natural gas, an important feedstock, fell. More active than Charles in politics, he bet a lot on ejecting Barack Obama from the White House and lost -- "bitterly disappointing," he told Forbes in an interview after the election -- but he isn't giving up on his project to drive down government spending and increase economic freedom. "We're not going to roll over and play dead," he told Forbes. He has given away more than $1 billion over his lifetime, including $395 million for medical research since 1998.

8. Li Ka-shing ($31 B)

Asia's richest person Li Ka-shing added $5.5 billion to his fortune as shares of his biggest holdings, Cheung Kong, Hutchison Whampoa and Husky Energy, all jumped 10% or more. He scooped up another $860 million in dividends in 2012. At age 84, Li still oversees one of the world's most far-reaching empires with 260,000 employees in 52 countries. Li controlled companies bought British gas supplier Wales & West Utilities for $1 billion in October; his third utilities acquisition in the U.K. in 24 months. He now supplies gas to a quarter of all Brits. Last summer Li officially announced his succession plans, positioning his elder son Victor to take over management and control of the publicly traded assets. Son Richard, also a billionaire who runs his own businesses, will get cash and help on deals. The elder Li is also an investor in Facebook, Spotify, social TV platform Stevie, Kaiima, Everything.Me and Hola.org Kaiima, Everything.Me and Hola.org.

9. Liliane Bettencourt & family ($30 B)

At age 90, Liliane Bettencourt is the world's richest woman, and returns to the top ten wealthiest for the first time since 1999. She and her family own more than 30% of L'Oreal, which her father founded. They've gotten far richer this year, thanks to a boost in the French cosmetics powerhouse's stock. However she had her fortune placed under the guardianship of her daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers in 2011 following a very public three-year legal battle. The elderly widow, who suffers from dementia, was replaced on the company's board by her 25-year-old grandson Jean-Victor Meyers in February 2012. The family has waged numerous legal battles against one another. In 2008, Bettencourt-Meyers petitioned courts to investigate a reported $1 billion in cash and gifts her mother allegedly gave to a friend, Francois-Marie Banier, a well-known photographer, writer and painter. Francoise claimed, and Liliane hotly denied, that Banier had taken advantage of her mother.

10. Bernard Arnault & family ($29 B)

The world's most influential tastemaker, Bernard Arnault fell from No. 4 in the world to No. 10 not because his luxury goods powerhouse LVMH dropped in value - its shares were up 6% in fact - but due to more information on his ownership stake and a revised valuation method. Another factor: His fortune is mostly held in Christian Dior, which has a 41% stake in LVMH and trades at a near 20% discount to the underlying shares. Arnault denied reports that his request for Belgian citizenship last year was related to the country's tax regime, but it nevertheless sparked a debate about France's taxes on the rich. It was announced in October that he will be knighted for his services in the U.K. He is opening his new museum, the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation, designed by Frank Gehry, by the end of this year. Arnault apparently wooed his wife, Helene Mercier, a concert pianist, by playing Chopin and other classical composers.

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