Africa has 54 nations, but only eight of those have billionaires.

South Africa and Egypt tied for first place with the most billionaires on Forbes’ Top 10 Richest People in Africa list. Nigeria came in second, and is home to Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.

Six South Africans appear in a new report by Hurun Research Institute, which ranks the richest people in the world.

The Hurun Global Rich List 2020 ranked 2 816 billionaires from 71 countries, reports BusinessTech.

“The US had a record number of 626 billionaires. China, despite the Trade War, added 182 new faces to hit 799 billionaires, three times the number of new faces in the US, widening the gap with the US.”

The list is more than likely not 100% complete. While Hurun ranks 2 800 billionaires, there are reportedly around 6 500 billionaires in the world, “assuming that for every one billionaire identified through public trading, at least one if not more billionaire exists through private wealth”.

Here’s the top 10 according to the report:

Source: BusinessTech

Jeff Bezos is still the richest man in the world, and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Forbes’ ‘Real-Time Billionaires’ ranking differs slightly with the results above, placing Gates at number two, with Arnault coming in third and Warren Buffett holding his place at number four.

Both Forbes and Hurun base their billionaire data off publicly available information and investment data, however wealth is measured over different time periods.

Hurun’s data is a snapshot of wealth at the end of January 2019, while Forbes’ data is a snapshot of wealth from February 2019.

The six richest South Africans, according to Hurun, are ranked as follows:

Source: BusinessTech

This ranking debuts Capitec founder Michiel le Roux, with a net worth of $1,4 billion.

Diamond magnate Nicky Oppenheimer was again ranked  as the richest man in the country, seeing his wealth grow marginally at 1%. Luxury retail billionaire Johann Rupert saw his wealth grow 5%, and African Minerals boss Patrice Motsepe also saw his net worth grow 6%.

While South Africa’s billionaires all fell a little in the rankings this year, they’re still doing pretty well for themselves.

If you’d like to know how the country’s super rich spend their billions, head here.

[source:businesstech]