Japanese tycoon world’s richest citizen

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 25

Japanese tycoon world’s richest citizen

By

TOM BRIDGMAN,

NZPA correspondent Washington The world’s richest man is a Japanese property development magnate worth about SUS2O billion ($32.4 billion). Yoshiaki Tsutsumi heads the Seibu railway group, Japan’s richest and biggest landlord and is, according to "Forbes” magazine, the richest of 96 persons or families outside the United States, all with a net worth of at least SUSI billion ($1.62 billion). The United States has 45 billionaires. The second richest nonAmerican billionaire is also Japanese, Taikichiro Mori, a former economics professor who founded Mori Building which owns 65 office buildings in downtown Tokyo. His wealth is estimated at SUSIS billion ($24.3 billion). Seven others have wealth in excess of SUSS billion ($B.l billion), including three Japanese real estate czars, a German retailing family, the owners of a Swedish liquid packaging empire, the Canadian Reichman brothers who are North

America’s largest real estate developers, and the news media baron, Kenneth Roy Thomson, whose family has a net worth of SUSS.4 billion ($8.74 billion). The Australians, Robert Holmes a Court and the media magnate, Kerry Packer, also make the list, although only in the "over SUSI billion category”. They are the only two in the South Pacific now that the other news media baron, Rupert Murdoch, is officially a United States citizen. The source of the wealth is varied, “Forbes” listing Colombian cocaine criminals among those with a wealth in excess of SUS2 billion ($3.24 billion). Pablo Escobar-Gaviria and the Ochoa brothers (Jorge Luis, Fabio and Juan Daivid) are the biggest forces in the Colombian “Medellin” cocaine cartel, it says. Escobar, wanted in the United States for cocaine peddling, money laundering and contract killings, controls a 40 per cent share in the cartel, which indicated a cash flow to him alone totalling at

least SUS 3 billion ($4.86 billion) over the years. , The Ochoas,, who control 30 per cent of the cartel, also breed fighting bulls and racehorses, and own 55 aircraft, and have probably accumulated more than SUS2 billion ($3.24 billion). The SUS2 to SUSS billion ($3.24 to $B.l billion) category also includes amongst its 23 entrants Italy’s Giovanni Agnelli, chairman of Fiat, and Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster and the wealthiest landowner in Britain outside of the Royal Family. The duke has a net worth of about SUS 3 billion ($4.86 billion). Well-known people who are thought to be billion aires but did hot make the "Forbes” list include Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian arms dealer often referred to as “the richest man in the world.” “Forbes” says he has had a series of embarrassing business reverses and “Arab bankers are whispering that he has a negative net worth.” Christina Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate’s daughter, also missed and may not even be a quar-

ter-billionaire because of the shipping industry depression, while others off the list include the legendary Rothschilds who are vastly wealthy but with several branches of the family their present wealth is unclear. Among multl-billio-naires excluded by “Forbes” are King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and the Sultan of Brunel, since, says the magazine, their power is political first and economic only secondary. “Forbes” also excluded “directors like Fidel Castro (Cuba) and Kim II Sung (North Korea), because their luxury and power depend on the gun and knife, not economic prowess.”