Five Cypriots made the Forbes Billionaires list 2016 The UK property entrepreneurs Lazari family comes in at position 854 with a 2.1$ Billion fortune. He enrolled in a London Fashion Design course, and created a successful fashion line after graduating. The couple poured the fashion profits into real estate investments, and now Lazari Investments owns 2.65 million square feet across London, mostly office rentals. Christos died in 2015, just a few months before his 50th wedding anniversary. The rest of the family now run the business.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of budget airline EasyJet, comes in at 3156 with a wealth of $1.4b. His brother, Polys, also through EasyJet, is in 1,511 position with a fortune of $1.3b and their sister Clelia at 1743 with a value of $1.1Billion.
The son of a Greek Cypriot shipping magnate, Stelios Haji-Ioanou earned the bulk of his fortune from his stake in budget airline easyJet, which he founded in 1995; his siblings Clelia and Polys, both also billionaires, hold slightly smaller stakes in the company. Stelios has tried to replicate the easy magic, but other endeavors haven’t been as fruitful. He floated easyHotel on the London Stock Exchange in 2014 with a disappointing public offering. Stelios maintains ownership of the easy brand through his private company, easyGroup, which is based in London. He licenses the brand for use in other sectors offering discounted value to customers, such as easyBus, easyCar and easyGym. Prior to founding EasyJet, he started the Stelmar shipping company with money from his late father in 1992; it went public in 2001 and Stelios sold his stake in 2005 for quadruple the initial share price. His Stelios Philanthropic Foundation works to support entrepreneurship and the environment in the UK, Cyprus and Greece, where a “food from the heart” initiative gives a free lunchtime snack to the needy. He was knighted in 2006 and now lives in Monaco, where he likes to take one of his two small yachts out on the water on weekends.

Brother of easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Polys’ fortune comes from his stake in the budget airline. Following a 2013 conflict between Stelios and management regarding the purchase of new aircraft, the Haji-Ioannou siblings sold 200,000 shares each in protest; the family still owns some 35% of the carrier. Polys is also something of a shipping magnate, controlling transport group Polyar Tankers, which has managed oil tankers out of Norway since 1993. Shipping runs in the family: father Loucas Haji-Ioannou, the self-styled “King of Tankers” got into the business in the 1950s and purchased his first oil tanker in 1969. Born to a poor Cypriot family in the Troodos Mountains — which later lent its name to the family company Troodos Shipping — Loucas made his fortune from transporting oil. Polys is based in Monaco.

Clelia Haji-Ioannou’s is a billionaire thanks to her stake in cut-price carrier EasyJet. Her brother, Stelios Haji-Ioannou founded the budget airline in 1995. Along with brother Polys, the three Haji-Ioannou siblings own some 33% of the company, despite a 2013 dispute with EasyJet’s board that caused the family to cut its stake by 600,000 shares. Born in Athens, Clelia’s father Loucas Haji-Ioannou was the self-styled “King of Tankers” and ran the family’s shipping company. Today, Clelia holds both Cypriot and British citizenship and sits on the board of the Cyprus Marine Environment Protection Association. She is reportedly an avid art collector. Shipping magnate and naturalised Cypriot John Fredriksen comes in somewhat higher on the list in 134th place with his fortune of $9.2b. He started trading oil in the 1960s in Beirut, bought his first tankers in the 1970s, ran crude oil for Iran in the 1980s, then in the 1990s, with Frontline Ltd, established himself as the king of the tanker trade.
In 2005 he got into the deepwater drilling business with Seadrill; that company now puts $400m a year in dividends into his pocket. In 2012, with the tanker business in the toilet, ship prices depressed, and his Frontline in need of recapitalisation, Fredriksen spun off its young ships and newbuild orders as Frontline 2012. Shares surged on the Oslo exchange, and he expects to list the company on the NYSE soon. Fredriksen is also big in fish farming with Marine Harvest, which in 2013 bought Morpol and a stake in Grieg Seafood. He aims to consolidate the industry. This son of a welder long ago gave up Norwegian citizenship to become a Cypriot. He runs his empire from London mansion and relaxes in Marbella.
Also we have a Turkish Cypriot in position 1726 with a fortune of $1.1 Billion Suat Gunsel owns the largest university, Yakin Dogu (Near East) University in the Turkish occupied part of Cyprus. The majority of his wealth comes from the university and from the hospital, bank, hotel, gas station, moulding, plastics and cable production companies he owns under the same name. He is also the owner of one of the largest land portfolios in the occupied part.

There are also three Greeks’
Spiro Latsis is in the 506th place of the Forbes’ list with 3.2 billion dollars in property. Spiro Latsis is one of the strongest men in Greece’s shipping industry. He is the son of the tycoon John S. Latsis and has been managing the family fortune since his father passed away in 2003.
Philip Niarchos are placed in the 688th position with their property amounting to 2.5 billion dollars. Philip Niarchos is the oldest son of Stavros Niarchos, one of the world’s richest shipping magnates. He inherited the bulk of his father’s art collection which includes some of the world’s most recognizable pieces of art. It is said to be the largest private collection of Van Goghs, including a self-portrait of the painter after having cut off his own ear. Niarchos also owns some of the most emblematic works by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.
Spiros Latsis in position 906 with a fortune of $2Billion Spiro Latsis has been managing the family fortune since his father, Greek shipping tycoon John S. Latsis, passed away in 2003. The family still has a foot in the shipping business through Latsco Shipping, which owns a fleet of more than a dozen oil tankers and liquefied petroleum gas carriers. But the bulk of their wealth is now invested elsewhere. The Latsis Group’s largest position is in EFG International, a Zurich-based private banking group where Latsis is a board director. The family also owns a substantial stake in oil company Hellenic Petroleum and Lamda Development, a publicly traded real estate developer active in southeastern Europe. In 2014, Lamda Development partnered with Chinese firm Fosun and Abu Dhabi-based Al Maabar to finance a nearly $8-billion project in Athens that promises to be the largest mixed-use development in Europe. Latsis is a three-time graduate of the London School of Economics and a board trustee of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.
Aristotelis Mistakidis, known as “Telis,” comes in at position 1492 with a fortune of £1.31 Billion is the director of the copper business at commodities and mining giant Glencore and owns a 3% stake in the London-listed company. A citizen of both the United Kingdom and his native Greece, he attained billionaire status in 2011 with the IPO of Glencore, which has vast assets in oil and gas, agriculture and mining that span the globe. The company completed a mega-merger in 2013 with Xstrata, then the fourth-largest mining conglomerate in the world. After the dust settled, much of the Glencore brass claimed top positions in the new firm while Xstrata bosses were ousted. Glencore dropped Xstrata from its name entirely in 2014. Mistakidis got his start in the commodities business at Cargill, and joined Marc Rich & Co. in 1993. Shortly after, the firm was bought by management and renamed Glencore. A London School of Economics graduate, he worked in what would become the zinc, copper and lead department, eventually rising to the rank of co-director in 2000, along with billionaire coworker Daniel Mate

The richest in the world

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest gainer in Forbes’ 2016 billionaires list of the world’s richest people, moving up 10 spots from last year to claim the ranking as the world’s sixth richest person, the business magazine said Tuesday.
The tech executive and social media leader achieved the feat with total net worth that Forbes estimated at $44.6 billion, up from $33.4 billion in the 2015 ranking.

Zuckerberg is among 1,810 billionaires who made the updated list, with aggregate net worth of $6.48 trillion, down from $7.05 trillion last year, Forbes said.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates maintained the top spot as the world’s richest person. His estimated $75 billion net worth, down from $79.2 billion last year, gave him the number one position for the 17th time in the last 22 years, Forbes said.
Spanish clothing retailer Amancio Ortega, best known in the U.S. for the Zara fashion chain, moved up two spots to second place as his estimated net worth increased $2.5 billion to $67 billion, the listing showed.
Famed business investor Warren Buffett kept third place in the ranking even though his net worth dropped $11.9 billion to an estimated total of $60.8 billion.
Mexican telecom magnate and investor Carlos Slim Helú ranked fourth, down two spots from last year, as his estimated net worth fell to $50 billion from the $77.1 billion Forbes reported in 2015.
Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos moved up to fifth place from the 15th spot last year as his net worth increased to $45.2 billion.
Rounding out the new top ten are Larry Ellison, executive chairman of software giant Oracle ($43.6 billion); Michael Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor who heads the business information firm that bears his name ($40 billion); and brothers Charles and David Koch ($39.6 billion), who lead U.S. multinational corporation Koch Industries.
The new ranking is also notable for those who didn’t make this year’s list.
J. Michael Pearson, CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, fell out of the rankings as the Canada-based drugmaker lost roughly 75% of its value over the last six months amid government and regulatory investigations of the company’s pricing and marketing practices.
U.S. fashion designer Tory Burch also missed the 2016 list, as the value of luxury fashion brands fell, Forbes said.
In all, 190 women made the 2016 billionaire ranking, seven fewer than last year. Leading the women is France’s Liliane Bettencourt, the businesswoman, heiress and grand dame of cosmetics giant L’Oréal. She took the 11th spot overall with an estimated net worth of $36.1 billion, Forbes said.
The net worth of Christy Walton, widow of one of Walmart founder Sam Walton’s sons, fell from an estimated $36.5 billion last year to $5.2 billion in 2016 based on what Forbes said was new details of how her fortune is split with her son, Lukas. That dropped Walton from the top-ranked woman billionaire last year to the 258th spot in 2016, the magazine said.
The new billionaire list also showed that:
•China had the most newcomers, adding 70 people to the ranking, more than the 33 first-timers from the U.S. But China also 42 drop-offs, leading in that category as well.
•Norwegian heiresses Alexandra Andresen, 19, and her sister, Katharina Andresen, 20, are the world’s youngest billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $1.2 billion.
•The U.S. led the list with 540 billionaires, followed by China with 251, Germany with 120, India with 84 and Russia with 77.