The Top Ten Billionaires in Finance

as rounded up by Matt Turner:

1. Warren Buffett, 78 years old, $37 billion.
Buffett, chairman and chief executive of financial conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway

2. Michael Bloomberg, 67, $16 billion
Bloomberg was the only man in the top 20 whose wealth increased last year, despite his only taking home $1 a year in compensation as mayor of New York City.

3. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaul, 54, $13.3 billion
The “Buffett of Arabia” saw shares in his Saudi-listed investment vehicle Kingdom Holding fall 60% last year, as his ill-timed bet on Citigroup backfired, with shares in the U.S. financial conglomerate falling in 86% in a year.

4. David Thomson, 51, $13 billion.
Chairman of Thomson Corp, now Thomson Reuters, the media conglomerate in which has family own a 70% stake.

5. George Soros, 78, $11 billion.
Soros founded the Quantum Find in 1969, and is said to have made $1 billion in a day in his fight with the Bank of England over sterling.

6. Ronald Perelman, 66, $10 billion.
Renowned corporate raider Perelman famously bid for Salomon Brothers in the late 1980s, and sold Golden State Bancorp to Citigroup in 2002 for $6 billion.

7. Mikhail Prokhorov, 43, $9.5 billion.
Despite losing more than half of his wealth last year, Prokhorov is now the richest man in Russia, and owner of a 50% stake in Renaissance Capital, through his investment vehicle Onexim Group.

8. Carl Icahn, 73, $9 billion.
Activist investor Icahn, a former Wall Street trader at Dreyfus & Co, was hit by a 71% fall in the value of shares in his holding company Icahn Enterprises last year.

James Simons, 71, $8 billion
Founder of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, Simons’ wealth actually increased last year. According to Forbes, his quant hedge fund has returned 80% net of fees last year.

John Paulson, 53, $6 billion
Hedge fund manager Paulson reaped handsome profits by betting against subprime-mortgage securities in 2008, personally pocketing $3.5bn. Paulson, who previously worked for Bear Stearns, has continued to benefit from the credit crunch by betting against U.K. bank shares.