Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal accused Forbes of underestimating his fortune, BBC News informs.
On March 3, Forbes published the billionaire list with 57-year-old prince owning $20 bn ranked twenty sixth. The prince argued his assets are actually worth $29.6 bn.
Had Forbes been more accurate, Alwaleed Bin Talal would have found himself in the top ten. Currently, the tenth place is occupied by the richest Frenchman heading Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault, with his $29 bn.
According to representatives of Prince Alwaleed, he demanded that his name be taken off the Forbes billionaire list. The member of Saudi royal family charged the magazine with miscalculating financial holdings and discriminating against the Middle East investors.
In its turn, Forbes posted on its website a long article focused on Prince Alwaleed, providing another vision of the situation. According to Forbes, “image is everything to billionaire Prince Alwaleed”, that is why his PR managers insisted on evaluating his fortune according to his own estimates. Forbes disagreed with his estimates, and then the prince said he did not want to be in the rating.
The top spot of the list belongs to telecommunication tycoon Carlos Slim worth $73 bn. He is followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates having $67 billion. Then comes Amancio Ortega with a fortune of $57 bn.
