Gates tops Forbes billionaire list again

While fighting a government antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, the world8217;s largest software company, Gates easily fended off rivals to his billionaires8217; throne. The combined riches of five people, the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, still fell 3 billion short to rank No 2 with 48 billion.

The wealthiest individual on the list behind Gates was sage investor Warren Buffett, No 3 at 33 billion.Rounding out the top five were Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at 21 billion and Canada8217;s Kenneth Thomson, head of publishing giant Thomson Corp, at 14.4 billion.

One notable new member of this year8217;s list was the family of former Indonesian President Suharto, whose 32 years in power enabled him to amass stakes in about 3,200 Indonesian companies and a family fortune of about 4 billion, Forbes said.

The new criteria dropped several billionaires from the list, including the 15.3 billion Quandt family of Germany, a majority shareholder of BMW who ranked No 10 last year, L8217;oreal8217;s founding Bettencourt family of France worth 11.4 billion and sisters Barbara Cox Anthony and Anne Cox Chambers, 7.1 billion dollars heirs of the US media company Cox Enterprises.

The 12th annual list, which excludes dictators and royalty, is a companion to Forbes8217; oft-quoted rankings of the 400 richest Americans, which is slated for its October 12 issue. If royalty were included among the topbillionaires, the Sultan Ord Branson at 1.9 billion, would have figured.

The top Japanese on the list was Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, chairman of Seibu Railway Co, t 5.7 billion. The average net worth of the top 200 billionaires was 4.7 billion, up from 3.9 billion in 1997.