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Saturday 23 March 2013

Billionaires 2013: Strange But True Facts About the World's Richest - Forbes

Via - Forbes 
In our 27th year of tracking fortunes around the globe, we found 1,426 billionaires. They are the wealthiest of the wealthy.  Though we’ve been at it a long time, it is never an easy task.  Some billionaires cooperate; others don’t. While we were compiling all data about these billionaires we came across some great stories (some new, some not so new). Below are some of my favorites. Try to find out who they are without clicking on their names. Answers are on the next page.
One billionaire is named God. I never thought I would write or read this but, “God was born in Azerbaijan and his net worth is $3 billion.”A real estate tycoon had Mike Tyson as his best man at his $1 million wedding. One has been charged for having sex with an underage prostitute, while another has been charged with having sex with his stepdaughter. The year’s biggest losersaw his fortune evaporate over $53 million per day, on average, during one year while his son hit and killed a cyclist when driving his Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. A New York  billionaire was banned from celebrity sushi chain Nobu.
Some billionaires enjoy amassing not only enormous amounts of cash but also all kinds of things: The oldest billionaire alive owns one of the world’s biggest beetle collections. A Turkish billionaire, who made his fortune selling beer, owns 3,000 pens and even carries some around. A French tycoon owns over 1,000 comic books.
The stepmother of two billionaires demanded her husband’s body be exhumed for a DNA test years after his death.  There are 9 billionaires who have 10 or more children. The female billionaire with the largest number of children has 9 children. One billionaire has 23 children (extra hint: he is the fourth richest man of his country). There are 23 billionaires who are under 40. The world’s youngest billionaire pitches his own tent at Burning Man.
Many billionaires have also been involved with war:a 91 years old workaholic was a World War II B-17 bomber pilot, another is a Korean War veteran, and this billionaire is a descendant of Koreans and was forced by Stalin to move to Kazakhstan.
This female billionaire can only communicate with her eyes since contracting ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) disease in 2000.
We also have a bunch of one-time athletes: a Japanese billionaire used to be a boxer before joining the business world. Another played at Wimbledon before becoming a beer mogul and hisbillionaire partner holds multiple world records for underwater spearfishing.
Two men joined the list this year thanks to a company they co-founded. Every year we see partners joining our ranks of the world’s richest.  The only not-so-common fact here is that they used to be lovers.
Read on for the billionaire scandals of 2012 or Top Billionaire Scandals of 2011. But remember that billionaires make the headlines not just because of their eccentricities but thanks often to their ingenious invention or their notable philanthropic largesse.

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