Counting the Billionaires

The global wealth boom has created a new breed of billionaire in once-poor countries like Turkey, India, Mexico and Russia. Propelled by their rising economies, robust currencies and competitive companies, they have ridden a surge in local stock markets that have reached previously untouchable heights in a five-year timeframe. Now, a number of them are using their wealth to bolster their standing and push for social changes.

For these emerging economies, where loose regulation, opaque privatization processes and monopolistic business practices abound, this extraordinary and uneven creation of wealth rivals in many ways the great American fortunes made at the turn of the 20th century.

Carlos Slim Helú, the telecommunications entrepreneur in Mexico who is worth more than $50 billion, has pledged billions of dollars to his two foundations that will aid health and education. Roman Abramovich, Russia’s richest man, who has a net worth of $18 billion, has channeled more than $1 billion into the impoverished Arctic area of Chukotka, building schools and hospitals. In India, Azim Premji, the chairman of the software company Wipro who is worth $17 billion, has established his own foundation that supports elementary education. But as these fortunes are still being made, the sums donated are relatively small in light of the pressing social needs of these countries.

A Nontraditional Climb

Here in Turkey, Ozyegin, who is 62 and has a net worth of $3.5 billion, did not secure his wealth by buying Government assets on the cheap or by belonging to a rich family that controls a monopoly. The founder of a mid-tier corporate bank called Finansbank, he cashed in on a rush of interest by foreign financial institutions in Turkish banks last year and sold a controlling stake in his bank to the National Bank of Greece, receiving $2.7 billion in cash. Flush with money and ambition, he is doing all that he can to lift Turkish educational standards at the primary and university level.

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