African richest man, Aliko Dangote has been ranked 74th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a list that tracks the fortunes of the world’s 500 richest people.
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani emerged as the world’s second-richest man ahead of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos.
Dangote, whose net worth has declined by $275 million since the start of the year, dropped out of the top 80 richest billionaires list more than a week ago, as his wealth fell below the $19-billion mark for the first time since Sept. 29, 2021.
After falling out about a week ago, the billionaire, who derives the majority of his fortune from his 86-per cent stake in Dangote Cement Plc, Africa’s largest cement maker, is now ranked 74th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Dangote is now the richest Black man in the world.
His re-entry into the top 80 billionaires list was aided by the decline in the net worth of Indonesian billionaire Michael Hartono, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, and Thomas Frist, a U.S. physician and businessman who is the wealthiest person in Tennessee, a landlocked state in the southeastern United States.
Dangote’s net worth has fallen from $19.1 billion at the beginning of the year to $18.8 billion, according to Billionaires Africa, and this equates to a $257-million loss in wealth for the billionaire businessman since the year began.
The drop in his net worth, which began on May 13 when he became the world’s 61st richest man after his net worth surpassed $21 billion for the first time since 2014, can be attributed to a drop in the shares of his publicly traded cement company, Dangote Cement.