From left to right: Najib and Taha Mikati, Baha' Hariri, Robert Mouawad, Ayman and Fahd Hariri. (Credit: Le Commerce du Levant)
BEIRUT — In its annual ranking for 2023 published on Tuesday, Forbes magazine listed 2,640 global fortunes exceeding one billion dollars, compared to 2,668 last year. A few of them have been dropped, taking with them some 500 billion dollars in total. Going down from 12.7 trillion in March 2022, the total basket of these billionaires accounts for 12.2 trillion dollars this year, a decrease of 4 percent. To do the math, Forbes said it "calculated net fortunes using stock prices and exchange rates as of Friday, March 10, 2023."
"Nearly half the list is poorer than a year ago," the authors of the ranking highlighted, giving as an example the eccentric Elon Musk, who moved from first to second place with a fortune of $180 billion, compared to $219 billion last year. The Tesla and SpaceX boss wrote a check for about 30 billion dollars last fall to buy the social network Twitter, which notably caused Tesla's stock to fall.
"The richest man and woman in France are also the richest in the world," said Forbes France. The fortune of the CEO of the luxury company LVMH, Bernard Arnault, has surpassed that of Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (who now ranks third place with $114 billion, compared to $171 billion in March 2022). The Frenchman has $211 billion in assets this year, $53 billion more than last year.
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the heiress of L'Oréal, ranked 11th place with $80.5 billion, compared to $74.8 billion last year.
With this historic French duo, Forbes France cited "the strength of the French economy despite the successive crises that our country is going through, directly or indirectly."
This is a stark contrast to Lebanon, with the economic crisis that left 80 percent of the population in poverty, going strong into its third year. Nevertheless, high on the list, among the remaining 20 percent, we find (without surprise) for the fifth consecutive year, the Lebanese regulars of this ranking: the Mikati and Hariri brothers, as well as the jeweler Robert Mouawad.
We take the same and start again
Although they have lost some feathers this year, Najib and Taha Mikati still share the first place among Lebanese billionaires with a fortune estimated by Forbes at 2.8 billion dollars, against 3.2 billion dollars last year. This is a drop of 12.5 percent and 116 places in the world ranking (from 951st to 1067th) compared to last year. According to our calculations, if the current Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati and his brother had left their wealth within Lebanese banks when banking restrictions on depositors' foreign currency accounts were imposed in the fall of 2019, that $2.8 billion would now be worth only about $350 million.
Behind them, in 1,434th place, is Baha' Hariri, older brother of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who is up 11 places from March 2022. According to Forbes, his fortune has not moved since last year and remains estimated at $2.1 billion. Climbing 24 places in this ranking, from 1,929th to 1,905th, the fourth Lebanese billionaire is jeweler Robert Mouawad who also maintained the same fortune as last year ($1.5 billion). As for Ayman and Fahd Hariri, they are positioned at the 2,020th and 2,259th places respectively with 1.4 and 1.2 billion dollars each, also maintaining their 2022 numbers.
On the Lebanese diaspora's end, Mexican national Carlos Slim-Helou and his family pocketed some $11.8 billion more in one year, rising from $81.2 billion in March 2022 to $93 billion last month. This puts the Slim-Helou family in eighth place worldwide. In France, the Saadé siblings are in 184th place, with Jacques Jr., Rodolphe and Tanya worth some $9.8 billion, a 76 percent drop from the $41.4 billion recorded in 2022, according to Forbes.
As for the Safra dynasty, the widow of the Lebanese-Brazilian banker Joseph Safra, Vicky, is in the 100th spot with $16.7 billion, compared to $7.4 billion in 2022. She shares the fortune with her children, although a dispute over the inheritance has been in the hands of New York courts for several months.