Rise of emerging economies helps swell ranks of the world’s wealthiest. There have never been so many billionaires alive at once. The combined U.S.-dollar worth of the world’s 793 billionaires comes to $2.6 trillion as of mid February this year, according to Forbes magazine’s annual list. That’s up from 691 billionaires worth $2.2 trillion collectively in 2005.

Forbes says this year’s stampede into the billionaire’s club owes a lot to the recent buoyancy of equity markets around the world – a phenomenon that, notoriously enough, wasn’t much in evidence in the U.S.

Big movers

Russia’s RTS bourse rose 108% in the 12 months through early March 2006, helping to swell the number of that country’s billionaires by seven newcomers to a total of 33 this year. India, whose bellwether BSE SENSEX index gained 54% gained through the same period, created 10 new billionaires this year, bringing the Subcontinent’s total to 23.

For all that though Americans dominate the billionaire list this year, both in absolute numbers – 371 – and in new-billionaires creation. The second most prolific breeding ground for billionaires was Germany (55), followed by Russia, Japan (27), the U.K. (24) and India. Canada, with a population of just $30 million, punches above its weight with 22 billionaires this year – as do other sparsely peopled but commodity-rich places like Saudi Arabia (11) and Norway (4).

For the twelfth year in a row Forbes pegs Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose personal fortune comes to about $50 billion, as the richest individual alive. Once again second place goes to investing guru Warren Buffett, with $42 billion to call his own. Gates’ pile is up by about $3.5 billion over last year; Buffet’s is down by about $2 billion.

Paul Allen, Gates’ erstwhile partner in Microsoft, is the sixth-richest man in the world with about $22 billion to his name. Allen took seventh place last year.

Peregrinations

Other big names, like Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helu, India’s Lakshmi Mittal, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, Sweden’s Ingvar Kamprad and Canada’s Ken Thomson, moved up or down a couple of ranks within the top-ten segment relative to last year. Hong Kong real-estate developer Li Ka-shing stepped up from the twenty-second spot in 2005 to join the top ten this year.

Various heirs of late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, who seemed poised for a concerted assault on the top-ten in 2005, tumbled down the ranks this year. Wal-Mart’s stock took a hit late in 2005 amid snipey press and talk of some U.S. states forcing the company to up its health-benefits to employees.

Italy’s prime minister and mass-media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi ($11 billion), whom some have accused of entering politics for the sole purpose of keeping himself out of jail, saw his personal fortune shrink by $1 billion over the past year and his ranking fall from 25 to 37. Berlusconi escaped conviction for private-sector corruption a few years back by rushing into law new statutes of limitation on white-collar crime.

Among this year’s first-time billionaires are Google-gang members Sergey Brin ($12.9 billion), Larry Page ($12.8 billion) and Eric Schmidt ($4.8 billion), eBay’s first employee and second-biggest shareholder Jeffrey Skoll ($5 billion), Egyptian telecom and tourism magnate Onsi Sawiris ($4.8 billion) and Calvin Ayre ($1 billion), a Canadian who runs an Internet-based gambling empire out of Costa Rica.

Good eye

One of the most striking rise-to-riches stories is that of Petr Kellner, the first Czech to make into the Forbes billionaire ranking. In the early 1990s Kellner was the 20-something proprieter of an office-machine shop in Prague. But the business-school graduate knew an opportunity when he saw one. He secured a $1-million loan against his business and turned it into a controlling stake in the Czech Republic’s biggest insurance company, just as it was going public. That company is now worth $2.7 billion. Kellner more recently turned a $160-million investment in a Czech television broadcaster into a $580-million net profit.

Seventy-eight women make this year’s list. Among the six of them who are self-made billionaires is Ophrah Winfrey ($1.5 billion). Martha Stewart, who was reckoned to have had a net worth of $1.0 billion at this time in 2005, slipped off the billionaire list altogether this year.

Thirty-eight others joined Stewart on the bench in 2006; either because their fortunes declined or because their wealth had been shared out among family members. Still others dropped off the list as they went to more permanent sojourns in the Great Beyond.

Another 12 saw their fortunes improve enough to warrant their return to Forbes’ list of billionaires after periods of exile.

You can see the whole report here. –FWR

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