The world’s 400 richest people control a combined $3.9 trillion, according to the index, more than the GDP of every country on Earth except for the U.S., China and Japan. At their peak on May 18, the billionaires had almost $4.3 trillion, a $267 billion increase from Jan. 1. In August they lost those gains and more when a global sell off claimed as much as $182 billion in a week.

Bezos and Ortega dominated the upside of the year’s gyrations, adding $43 billion between them. The performance of the two billionaires contrasted with the family that owns about half of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer. The five members of the Walton family lost a combined $35 billion in 2015.

The market declines knocked 49 billionaires off the daily ranking this year, including Glencore Plc. chief executive Ivan Glasenberg and Wang Jing, a Chinese telecom entrepreneur who personally invested $500 million to help Nicaragua build an alternative to the Panama Canal. Glasenberg lost two-thirds of his fortune as he raced to slash debt at the Swiss commodities company and Wang fell by about 86 percent this year.


Brazilian Corruption


Brazilian banking billionaire Andre Esteves, former head of Latin America’s largest independent investment bank who was last ranked by the index in 2014, fell even further this year when his fortune declined by $1.5 billion. Esteves was hauled off to jail by police in November for allegedly trying to interfere in a corruption investigation.

After his arrest, he stepped down as Banco BTG Pactual SA’s chairman and CEO and the stock plunged by almost half. His fortune, which peaked at $4.9 billion in September 2014, ended the year at $1.8 billion. His lawyers said in December that the billionaire was arrested solely because he’s rich. He was released after the country’s supreme court ended the imprisonment after three weeks and remains under house arrest.

Esteves is the latest to fall in the biggest corruption investigation in Brazil’s history as the government cracks down on graft among the country’s economic elite. The probe, along with a political crisis, a currency rout and a recession took its toll, leaving only four of the 11 Brazil-based fortunes on the index with gains in 2015.

Jorge Paulo Lemann, the co-founder of New York-based buyout firm 3G Capital and Brazil’s richest person, led the gains with a $2.2 billion jump. His partners Marcel Telles and Carlos Sicupira increased their fortunes by about $1.7 billion combined, as 3G joined forces with Warren Buffett to merge Kraft Foods Group with H.J. Heinz. The three billionaires are also key shareholders in Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the beer giant that agreed to buy to acquire SABMiller Plc in a $110 billion deal.


Wild Ride


China’s billionaires had the wildest ride in 2015. On Jan. 1, there were 23 Chinese billionaires on the index with a combined net worth of $205 billion. At their May 27 peak there were 31 with a combined $348 billion. On Dec. 28 there were 28 billionaires with $256 billion.