Falling fortunes of billionaire Brits

IT HAS been a bad year for Britain's billionaires - of the 13 who appear in a new list of the super rich, seven have seen their wealth decline. But some things remain unchanged. For the eighth consecutive year Microsoft chief Bill Gates remains the richest man on the planet with a fortune of £37.4bn. In fourth spot is Paul G Allen, Microsoft co-founder, with a fortune valued at £17.9bn.

Britain's highest entry is the Duke of Westminster. He remains the richest man in Britain with a fortune of £4.75bn but comes in at number 38 in this year's Forbes Global list of the world's billionaires. He is followed by supermarkets mogul Lord (David) Sainsbury, at 76th with a fortune of £3bn, and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, 127th with a fortune of £2.1bn. Virgin entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson is 327th with a total wealth of £1bn.

Not surprisingly for a man who owns great swathes of the West End, the Duke of Westminster's wealth has increased. Ecclestone has pulled off the same trick with his wealth up by nearly a fifth on last year.

One of the most spectacular British falls is that of Mark Dixon, chief executive of the Regus office group. He just managed to get on the Forbes list last year with personal wealth of a billion dollars. Now he is worth less than a sixth of that. But his company's shares were worth around 27p compared with 392p a year ago.

It is not just Britain's billionaires who have done badly this year. The global economic downturn and the fallout from 11 September have meant there are now 83 fewer billionaires in the world than a year ago. Of the 497 still left, half have seen their wealth decline.

In total, there were 243 Americans on the list but among the 28 new billionaires, seven are from Russia, one is an Australian wine-maker and another is a Turk who mines soda-ash. If the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' lesson needed to be re-stated, Karl and Theo Albrecht from Germany have done so emphatically. They share third place on the list having increased their fortune to £18bn from their 4,000 Aldi discount stores in 10 countries.

The richest women in the world are Alice and Helen Walton, descendants of Sam Walton, founder of supermarket chain, Wal-Mart, although women billionaires make up 7% of the list. Only Doris Fisher - who opened the first Gap store in 1969 - is self-made.