The vanguard
12/08/2020 12:45
Clarín.com
World
Updated 12/08/2020 1:32 PM
Charles Koch feels good these months.
His estate was valued at $ 38.2 billion on March 18 and is now around $ 45 billion.
He has varied economic interests but he commands something: the
king of toilet paper
in the United States.
It is already
the 26th fortune of the country
with the most billionaires in the world.
The top 29 on the list can boast of having doubled in wealth since March, according to the Washington Institute for Policies Studies (IPS) which is based on stock indices.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has been another beneficiary of the pandemic.
Photo: REUTERS
Other estimates are more "modest": the global group of billionaires has
increased their wealth by 27% during the pandemic
, according to the Swiss UBS.
Billionaires are doing "extremely well" in this Covid-19 crisis, summarized a UBS report.
Quite the opposite of what happens with the very poor.
The World Bank has predicted that "extreme poverty is going to increase this year for the first time in two decades."
The conclusion is obvious: the pandemic has
intensified economic inequalities
although no one can be surprised that the billionaires have made good the theory that every great crisis is an opportunity for investors.
As happened in 2008 and 2009, the pandemic has helped certain industrial and technological prices soar on the stock markets.
Mark Zuckerberg, Creator and CEO of Facebook,
The billionaires' club
continues to be an American affair
thanks to its strength in three sectors that have greatly benefited from the pandemic situation: technology, health and the news channels.
The confinements have been generous with the owner of the greatest fortune in the world, Jeff Bezos.
The owner of Amazon had an estimated equity of 113,000 million dollars in March and in mid-October it
reached 203,100 million
, an increase of 79.8%, according to the newspaper
USA Today
.
He has already passed the bill for his divorce in 2019 (a quarter of his shares in Amazon).
Visionary Elon Musk, number two on America's great fortune list, is having
an extraordinary year
.
For the co-founder of PayPal, the benefits have come from his space firm SpaceX and his participation in the production of the electric car Tesla.
The firm's price was at $ 72 per share in March and today is around 500. Consequently, Musk has seen his assets grow by 277%.
Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, an NBA team, was the one who increased his assets the most during the pandemic.
Photo: AP
The third man, Mark Zuckerberg, is also familiar.
With the lockdown, telecommuting has exploded around the world, great news for Facebook.
Since March, when
Forbes released
its list, its assets have grown by 85.1% and its assets already exceed 100,000 million.
The record of success in terms of enrichment is held by Daniel Gilbert, owner of the NBA franchise of the Cleveland Cavaliers that from March until today
has multiplied by seven the patrimony
.
The August IPO of his mortgage firm Quicken Loans, which includes the Airbnb platform but also communication and team collaboration through new technologies, was a great success after months without spectacular IPOs.
China has another first fortune due to the pandemic
.
Jack Ma (Alibaba) has been replaced by Zhong Shanshan, whose best-known asset is the bottled water company Nongfu Spring, highly favored by the increased attention to food hygiene.
That and his control of a pharmaceutical company that produces hepatitis vaccines and rapid tests for Covid-19 explain
the rise of Zhong, the "lone wolf
,
"
as he is known among Chinese elites.
By Joaquín Luna, La Vanguardia
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