SALT LAKE CITY -- Two Utah residents -- chemical magnate Jon M. Huntsman and medical device manufacturer James L. Sorenson -- are among the world's 465 billionaires, according to a new listing by Forbes magazine.
Huntsman finished 146th on the listing with an estimated fortune of $3.2 billion, the same as the figure used last year, up $200 million from the year before and a full $1 billion higher than the magazine's estimate in 1997.Huntsman Corp. became the largest private chemical company in the world in April with a $2.8 billion purchase of four chemical businesses from Imperial Chemical Industries of London.
The purchase nearly doubled the revenue of the family-owned company founded in Salt Lake City in 1982 -- from $4 billion to $7.5 billion per year.
One of Huntsman's long-held business goals is to build as vast a petrochemical empire as possible, so he can give it away to charity. He gave $100 million to create a cancer institute at the University of Utah and last year donated $40 million to his alma mater, Wharton Business School.
Sorenson, who made his fortune in pioneering medical technology, has a net worth estimated at $2.9 billion, ranking him 172nd on the list, an increase of $500 million.
Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates was once again the richest man in the world, according to the list, with an estimated fortune of $90 billion, according to the magazine rankings scheduled to hit newsstands July 5.
Overall, the bullish stock market and new Internet wealth expanded the 13th annual world's billionaires list. The total wealth of the Top 200 on the list surpassed $1 trillion this year, more than double the $463 billion total of the top 200 billionaires 10 years ago.
Gates alone has as much money as the top nine on the list 10 years ago. His net worth nearly doubled from $51 billion last year, and briefly reached $100 billion in April before the stock market retrenched somewhat.
Microsoft boosted two others into top-five ranking. Co-founder Paul Allen was in the No. 3 spot, with a $30 billion net worth, behind investor Warren Buffet's $36 billion. Microsoft president Steven Ballmer was in fourth place, with $19.5 billion.
In fifth place were the Oeri, Hoffman and Sacher families of Switzerland with $17 billion from the Roche pharmaceuticals conglomerate.