Fortunes : Bill Gates dethroned by Robson Walton (Walmart)

A sign of times : an American owner of a department store chain takes the crown off the computer king. Still, the new economy keeps some great positions.

A sign of times which have become more difficult for the new economy : Bill Gates is not the richest man in the world any longer. The sunday edition of the Sunday Times gives the "rich list 2001" and the American Robson Walton is ranked first in the biggest fortunes in the world. His family is the owner of Walmart American supermarket chain and British Asda chain. Robson Walton is credited with £45.3 billion that is to say £8 billion more than Bill Gates, whose fortune has passed from £53.1 billion last year to 37.5 in 2001 (one pound is equal to 10.5 francs). That is the result of the e-krach.This makes commentators think that supermarket distribution has taken its revenge on computer science. However such a judgement has to be moderated since new information technologies have still some great positions in the list of 50 richest people in the world. Thus, at the third rank, the CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison, with £29 billion, is just before King Fahd from Saudi Arabia (£20 billion), while Paul Allen, the other founder of Microsoft is ranked sixth with £17 billion. The first French fortune in the Sunday Times standings : Liliane Bettencourt (L'Oréal) in 16th position, credited with a bit more than £10 billion.Besides, Lilianne Bettencourt is ranked second in the European standings, behind Karl and Theo Albrecht from Germany, the founders of the supermarket store Aldi. The Italian Silvio Berlusconi with £8.5 billion is third with the family owner of BMW, Johanna Quandt. Other French people in the standings : Bernard Arnault with a £100 million difference (5th with £8.4 billion); Gérard Mulliez (8th with £7.3 billion); the Seydoux-Schlumberger family (11th with £5.7 billion); François Pinault (14th with £5.2 billion). In France,the biggest jump from a year to another has been done by Bernard Arnault, whose fortune has doubled (£3.7 billion in 2000). A man who deals with the new economy as well as with the traditional economy…