Bezos, Buffett, Ma And More: Biggest Billionaire Gainers Of The Decade

Forbes Лидер

27 декабря 2019

17358

Gleaned from the pages of a book purchased by accident at the University of Nebraska, Warren Buffett's investment philosophy–buy and hold stocks forever–has proven to be one of the best-performing strategies of all time. It has also paid off particularly well this past decade

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Despite gifting large amounts of Berkshire Hathway stock to charity since 2006 (about $34 billion total), the Oracle of Omaha is ending 2019 with a net worth of roughly $89 billion, up approximately $42 billion since 2010 and making him the seventh-biggest billionaire gainer of the past 10 years. Buffett has never sold any Berkshire, and about 98% of his fortune is made up of the company’s shares.

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The never-ever let go strategy has worked for most of the decade’s other biggest gainers as well, all of whom are at least $40 billion richer than in 2010. Altogether the ten added an astonishing $555 billion to their fortunes. A testament to the longest bull market on record, all are founders or long-term executives, past and present, of public companies that dominated the decade's headlines. Like Buffett, they have largely scored by holding onto massive positions in those firms.

Former longtime Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, for example, ceded his role to current chief executive Satya Nadella in February 2014 after overseeing lukewarm growth for over a decade but was quick to declare his commitment to the software giant. “I bleed Microsoft—have for 34 years and I always will,” Ballmer said when he stepped down from the board months later. “The company will move to higher heights. I will be proud, and I will benefit through my share ownership,” he added.

Eight of the ten biggest gainers get 80% or more of their fortune from shares in firms they founded or formerly led. That includes not only Ballmer and Buffett, but also Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, LVMH’s Bernard Arnault and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Despite going through the most expensive divorce in history, Bezos is also the biggest gainer of all this decade, having added $97.4 billion since 2010. He’s now the richest person in the world, up from number 43 at the start of the decade.

Jack Ma, a former English teacher who grew up poor in China, holds about 60% of his fortune in Alibaba, the ecommerce monolith he started just 20 years ago with $60,000 in capital. Alibaba's listing on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014 was the largest IPO ever at the time. Another 9% of his net worth comes from the firm's fintech affiliate, Ant Financial, which is the world's most valuable unicorn, worth $150 billion. Now China’s richest person, Ma started the decade at $1.2 billion.

The only top gainer who doesn’t hold the majority of his fortune in one stock is Bill Gates. The software visionary has sold or given away most of the Microsoft shares stock that made him rich, instead building a more diversified investment empire. He’s up $54.6 billion this decade.