Four Irish businessmen are among almost 800 billionaires in the world, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of the super-rich published in New York last night.
Financier Dermot Desmond has joined Seán Quinn, John Dorrance III and Sir Anthony O'Reilly on the billionaires' list, which has swollen in the past year by more than 100 names to 793.
Mr Quinn, who lives in Co Fermanagh, built his fortune in the cement business but has diversified in recent years into a range of areas including pubs, hotels, glass recycling and insurance.
Mr Dorrance, who lives in Dublin, is an heir to the Campbell's soup fortune. He moved to Ireland from the US in 1994.
Microsoft's Bill Gates remains the world's richest man for the 12th year in a row, with a net worth of $50 billion - $8 billion more than his closest rival, investor Warren Buffett.
With a net worth $2.5 billion each, Mr Quinn and Mr Dorrance are ranked in the upper half of the list, sharing 292nd place. Sir Anthony's $1.4 billion places him 562nd and Mr Desmond, with just $1 billion, is at the bottom of the list.
Forbes said yesterday that strong stock markets around the world helped the world's richest people to increase their wealth by 18 per cent last year to a record $2.6 trillion. Europe's 196 billionaires had an especially good year, increasing their combined wealth to $802 billion, $128 billion more than last year.
Each of Ireland's four billionaires has become richer and Mr Quinn has seen his fortune more than double in the past year, allowing him to leap 256 places upwards in the Forbes list.
More than half of the world's billionaires are, like Mr Quinn, self-made but only 78 are women, an increase of 10 from 2005.
Almost half of the world's richest people are Americans, with Germany in second place with 55 billionaires. New York is the city of choice for the super-rich, 40 of whom live there. Twenty-five live in Moscow and 23 in London.
The youngest billionaire on the list is Hind Hariri (22), daughter of murdered Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
She is eight months younger than the youngest male billionaire, Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis.
