Binod Chaudhary has added Rs 10 billion in a year but remained alone in the Forbes Billionairs list this year too.
With $1.1 billion, Binod Chaudhary and family has become the world’s 1465th richest in the list of a record total of 1645 billionairs, according to the Forbes magazine that has published this year’s rich list today.
After debuting on the Forbes billionaire ranks last year, Binod Chaudhary who built most of his fortune overseas, remains Nepal’s only billionaire, Forbes reported, adding that his conglomerate, the Cinnovation/CG Group’s assets include a controlling stake in Nabil Bank, a fast growing foods business best known for instant noodle brand Wai Wai and a string of hotels in Asia and more recently, in Africa where in a joint venture with Uganda’s Mukwano group he’s building hotels in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. “Last year, CG diversified into telecom when it bought out ST Telecom, a rural telecom operator,” it added. “Chaudhary, who never went to college, joined the family’s textile trading business four decades ago and went on to expand his inheritance overseas. His three sons work with him; the eldest Nirvaan oversees interests in Nepal while Rahul and Varun are stationed abroad.”
According to the Forbes, with a net-worth of $76 billion Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is once again the world’s richest person.
Gates, who led the list for 15 of the past 20 years, won the spot back from Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu, who had topped the list for the past four years. Slim Helu follows Gates with a net-worth of $72 billion.
Likewise, Spanish clothing magnate Amancio Ortega – known for the Zara retail chain – maintained his No. 3 spot and came out ahead of famed US investor Warren Buffett, who ranked fourth. Larry Ellison of Oracle came in fifth.
Forbes reported that a record 1,645 billionaires made the list this year, with an average net worth of $4.7 billion. “That’s up from 1,426 billionaires last year with a net worth of $4.2 billion,” it stated, adding that the total net worth of this year’s list was $6.4 trillion, up from $5.4 trillion last year.
The magazine also reported that 1,080 of the billionaires were self-made, 207 inherited their wealth and 352 inherited a portion but are still growing it.
The largest net worth gainer on the list was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – who ranked 21st on the list – who more than doubled his fortune to $28.5 billion as the value of his company’s stock soared.
The social media giant also helped bring a few notable newcomers to the list, including Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who recently sold their business to Facebook for $19 billion.
Some 268 billionaires are new to this year’s list, beating out a prior high of 226 newcomers in 2008. “And a record number of women also made the list this year, with 172 women joining, up by 25 per cent from last year,” it reported, adding, “altogether 100 people dropped out of the rankings, while 16 passed away.”
The US has the largest number of billionaires at 492, followed by China with 152 and Russia with 111. Billionaires from four new countries joined, adding Algeria, Lithuania, Tanzania and Uganda to the geographic mix.

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