A record year for ten-figure wealth has left the billionaire class bigger and richer than ever.



What a year it’s been for the planet’s billionaires, whose fortunes continue to swell as global stock markets shrug off war, political unrest and lingering inflation. There are now more billionaires than ever: 2,781 in all, 141 more than last year and 26 more than the record set in 2021. They’re richer than ever, worth $14.2 trillion in aggregate, up by $2 trillion from 2023 and $1.1 trillion above the previous record, also set in 2021. 



Two-thirds of the list’s members are worth more than a year ago; only one fourth are poorer. Much of the gains come from the top 20, who added a combined $700 billion in wealth since 2023, and from the U.S., which now boasts a record 813 billionaires worth a combined $5.7 trillion. China remains second, with 473 (including Hong Kong) worth $1.7 trillion, despite weak consumer spending and a real estate bust that helped wipe out some $300 billion in wealth. India, which has 200 billionaires (also a record), ranks third. 



To calculate net worths, we used stock prices and exchange rates from March 8, 2024. See below for the full list of the world’s billionaires and our methodology. For daily updated net worths of all 2,781 billionaires, check out our&nbsp;<a href="http://forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">real-time billionaires rankings</a>.

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Isabel dos Santos amassed an empire worth more than $2 billion as the daughter of Angola’s former long-time president. Now it looks like that empire is beginning to crumble.



On Wednesday—as the Attorney
General of Angola held a press conference to provisionally charge Isabel dos
Santos with embezzlement and money laundering, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51218501" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according
to the BBC</a>—a bank in
Portugal where she has been a significant shareholder issued a statement saying
that Dos Santos’ stake is being sold.



EuroBic, a small privately
held bank in Lisbon in which Dos Santos has owned a 42.5% stake, issued a <a href="https://www.eurobic.pt/eurobic/noticias-eurobic/Comunicado-de-Imprensa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement on Monday</a> that it was severing its business relationship
with Dos Santos and the entities related to her. On Wednesday <a href="https://www.eurobic.pt/eurobic/noticias-eurobic/Comunicado-de-Imprensa---Estrutura-Acionista" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EuroBic announced</a> that Dos Santos had decided to sell her stake in
the bank, which has about $8 billion in assets. Forbes recently valued Dos Santos’
42.5% stake at around $200 million.



Dos Santos has come under
intense scrutiny this past week after a number of media outlets, including the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/world/africa/isabel-dos-santos-angola.html?action=click&amp;module=Intentional&amp;pgtype=Article" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York Times</a>, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51128950" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BBC</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/19/angola-state-oil-company-sonangol-isabel-dos-santos-investigation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Guardian</a>, published articles based on
the “Luanda Leaks”—a cache of some 700,000 documents related to Dos Santos’
allegedly corrupt business dealings that were released to the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).



Dos Santos was appointed to
head Angola’s state oil company, Sonangol, in 2016, when her father was still
president of the country. (He retired in 2017 after ruling Angola for 38
years.)



According to an article in<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/19/angola-state-oil-company-sonangol-isabel-dos-santos-investigation?utm_term=Autofeed&amp;CMP=twt_b-gdnnews&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1579458161" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> The
Guardian</a>, while Dos Santos
was heading up Sonangol, she allegedly arranged for a transfer of $57 million
on one day in November 2017 from Sonangol’s bank account to a Dubai company,
Matter Business Solutions, run by Paula Oliveira, a woman who The Guardian says is
apparently a close friend of Dos Santos’.



It turns out that the Sonangol
bank account from which the funds were transferred was a EuroBic account. In
its statement severing ties with Dos Santos, EuroBic also said that the
payments ordered by Sonangol to Matter Business Solutions “respected the legal
and regulatory procedures formally applicable . . . between this bank and
Sonangol, namely those related to the prevention of money laundering.”



The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51224655" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BBC is
reporting</a> that an employee of EuroBic who managed the
Sonangol account, Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha, 45, was found dead in Lisbon on
Wednesday. A police source told the BBC that “everything points to
suicide.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Dos Santos issued a statement on Thursday saying, “The
allegations which have been made against me over the last few days are
extremely misleading and untrue,” and adding that “I am a private businesswoman
who has spent 20 years building successful companies from the ground up,” and
that “I have always operated within the law and all my transactions have been
approved by lawyers, bankers, auditors and regulators.” 



Forbes first dug into the murky origins of Isabel
dos Santos’ fortune, with help from Angolan investigative journalist Rafael
Marques de Morais, in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2013/08/14/how-isabel-dos-santos-took-the-short-route-to-become-africas-richest-woman/#52e2d7c345f5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">an in-depth investigation in 2013</a>. In late
December 2019, an Angolan court issued a freeze of Dos Santos’ assets in
Angola—assets that Forbes estimates are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2020/01/03/angolan-billionaires-assets-frozen-by-countrys-court-worth-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars/#278178507acb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">worth hundreds of millions of dollars</a>. Most
of Dos Santos’ fortune—which <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/isabel-dos-santos/#4ec97300523f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Forbes estimates at $2.1 billion</a>—lies in assets held outside of Angola, primarily in Portugal. 



The natural question: Will other Portuguese companies in which Dos Santos is a shareholder follow in EuroBic’s footsteps? 



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/">Kerry A. Dolan, </a>Forbes Staff 



Isabel dos Santos features in the 2020 Africa Billionaire’s list in the February issue of FORBES AFRICA. The news of the provisional charges against her for embezzlement and money laundering was unavailable at the time of going to press.

Tag: African billionaires

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