Tycoons bathe in wealth amid global turmoil

(Agencies) Updated: 2014-12-31 06:59

Two of the year's other biggest gainers were Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg of the United States.

Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, added $13.7 billion to his net worth after the Omaha, Nebraska-based company soared 28 percent as the dozens of operating businesses the 84-year-old chairman bought over the past five decades churned out record profit.

Buffett passed Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim on Dec 5 to become the world's second-richest person. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp, was up $9.1 billion during the year. The 59-year-old remains the world's richest person with an $87.6 billion fortune.

Zuckerberg, the hoodie-wearing chief executive officer of the world's largest social-networking company, gained $10.6 billion as the Menlo Park, California-based business rose to a record on Dec 22.

Sheldon Adelson, the gambling mogul who controls Las Vegas Sands Corp, the world's largest casino company, fell $8.7 billion as the Las Vegas-based company dropped 25 percent.

Macao's casinos are looking at their first down year in revenue since the market was opened to foreign operators in 2002. More than half of the company's 2013 $13.8 billion in revenue comes from Macao.

Adelson's decline was followed by Jeffrey Bezos, chairman of Amazon.com Inc. The 50-year-old had $7.2 billion trimmed from his fortune as the Seattle-based company lost ground in the cloud computing market to crosstown competitor Microsoft Corp.

Dalian Wanda to buy online payment platform: sources

China's Dalian Wanda Group Co, whose real estate arm just raised about $3.7 billion in a Hong Kong share sale, announces to invest in a Chinese third-party payment platform to step into the nation's O2O market, sources familiar with the deal said.

According to the source, the deal made by the China's biggest commercial real estate developer, with 99Bill Corp, a Chinese payment processor similar to PayPal, reaches to more than $300 million.

The Beijing-based property conglomerate is diversifying into e-commerce as it seeks to maintain profitability during China's property downturn.