Slumdog Billionaire

Unlike most other Chinese billionaires the 26-year-old's fortune is not self-made. In fact Huiyan was little known until her father transferred 70 percent of his shares in his company, Country Garden Holdings into her name just before the firm went public in Hong Kong in 2007.

"Country Garden has not performed well over the last year. The stock price has dropped from its peak price of HKD$14 ($1.81) to now HKD$1.90 ($0.25)," says Christina Ngai, an analyst at Sun Hung Kai in Hong Kong. "[The] current market value of the stock is about HKD$30bn, which is about $3.9bn, so it's not surprising [she's still wealthy]," she added.

Huiyan was groomed by her father, who started the business in 1997, to take over from an early age - according to reports she was already attending important board meetings as a teenager. She now sits on the property development firm's board.

Another to make it to the list is Abu Dhabi's HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The son of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the former president of the UAE, was little known outside of the Middle East until he bought a 90 percent stake in the Premier League football team, Manchester City from ex-Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

At the same time Sheikh Mansour closed the deal, the British football team picked up Brazilian superstar Robinho from Real Madrid for a record transfer fee of $59m, proof the Arab businessman meant business.

The following month Sheikh Mansour made headlines again for a different reason when it was announced he had clubbed together with Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and offered a private rescue package of $9.6bn to Barclays after learning of reports that the British bank was refusing to take part in the government's bailout package.

With an estimated personal fortune of $4.9bn, Sheikh Mansour is now the Gulf's newest billionaire, according to the list. He is also the world's second youngest billionaire after Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both of whom have an estimated fortune of $12bn.

Although Sheikh Mansour, who also chairs the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Investment Company, is probably not the richest royal, he is the first one to invest his own money under his own name.

Other significant billionaire newcomers include the controversial inclusion of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. El Chapo, who heads up the biggest drug cartel into the US, has an estimated fortune of $1bn, and is number 701 on the list. Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers are estimated to have made between $18bn and $39bn in the last year says Forbes, and El Chapo is thought to have made a large chunk of his fortune from these sales as the assumed controller of the Sinaloa cartel.

El Chapo escaped prison in 2001 and is thought to be at large in either Mexico or Central America. Mexican officers blame much of the recent violence in the north of the country on him and there has been a public outcry since his name appeared on the list. President Felipe Calderon accused the magazine of "praising criminals" while the country's attorney general said Forbes is "comparing the deplorable activity of a criminal wanted in Mexico and abroad with that of an honest businessman."

No Forbes list would be complete without Saudi Arabia's HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud who has appeared on the Billionaire List for the last ten years. Listed at number 22, the chairman of Kingdom Holding Company is still the wealthiest Arab and Muslim, with an estimated fortune of $13.3bn, despite significant losses in many of his core investments.

Kingdom Holding has been Citigroup's largest individual investor since the early 1990s after the bank's then-chief executive sold $590m of convertible preferred stock to the prince. According to Bloomberg data, Citigroup has declined 77 percent in New York trading so far this year. Kingdom Holding released a statement shortly after the Forbes list saying its diversified portfolio would stand it in good stead during the economic downturn.

"The prince's investments are not focused in one field and instead cover all aspects of life," said the statement. "His [Prince Alwaleed] successful strategy in long-term investment has also paid off handsomely."

Other listed Arabs include Abdullah Al-Ghurair, the president of the UAE's largest independent bank, Mashreq with an estimated fortune of $23.8bn.

But not everyone has lost money. American hedge fund manager, John Paulson is bucking the trend. The 53-year-old made $3bn by betting that the US mortgage market would collapse. Investments so far this year include the $1.3bn he paid for South African mining firm, AngloGold Ashanti.

The list is not all doom and gloom.

READERS' COMMENTS

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM