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Thursday, March 11, 2010

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Latin America: Billionaire Fortune Jumps

Latin America's billionaires now have a larger fortune than the economy of Colombia.

WORLD'S RICHEST: Mexican mogul Carlos Slim is now the richest man worldwide. (Photo: CarlosSlim.com)

GROWING FORTUNE: Brazilian oil and mining mogul Eike Batista is now the world's eighth-richest man. (Photo: TSX, Canada)

RICHEST PRESIDENT: Chile's president Sebastian Pinera has become richer the past year, boosting his estimated fortune by 120 percent, Forbes estimates. (Photo: SebastianPinera.cl)

BY CHRONICLE STAFF

The number of billionaires in Latin America has increased 16 percent during the past year, while their combined fortune jumped a whopping 84.7 percent, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of Forbes data.

The increase is largely due to a jump in the share value of the companies they own, thanks to the recovery from a year earlier.

Latin America now can boast the richest person in the world – Mexican mogul Carlos Slim, who heads a diversified empire that spans telecommunications (

America

Movil, Telmex), industry, manufacturing, construction, hospitality and media (The New York Times).

Slim’s estimated fortune of $53.5 billion is larger than those of U.S. billionaires like Bill Gates ($53.0 billion) and Warren Buffet ($47 billion), according to Forbes.

Meanwhile, Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista is now the world’s eighth-wealthiest person, with an estimated fortune that is just barely behind French luxury mogul Bernard Arnault.

All in all, Latin America now has 36 billionaires with an estimated total fortune of ...

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Keywords: Latin America Ranking, Argentina. Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela

Latin America: Billionaire Fortune Jumps

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