NEW YORK -- Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the 55-year-old head of Japan's Seibu Railway Group, retained his crown as the world's richest person on the Forbes magazine list for the third year with a net worth of at least $15 billion.
Six of the top 10 global billionaires on the 1989 Forbes list were from Japan, but only one American made the elite club.
In its July 24 issue, the business publication said Tsutsumi's net worth declined by more than $3 billion from last year's $18.9 billion primarily because of the rise in the dollar against the Japanese yen.
In 1988 Tsutsumi turned down an opportunity to buy the Inter-Continental Hotel chain, which was later snapped up for $2.15 billion by his half brother, Seiji Tsutsumi.
Another Japanese, Taikichiro Mori, 85, was ranked second by Forbes, trailing Tsutsumi by $1 billion. Mori, a former professor who taught economics until he was 50, owns 72 Tokyo office buildings. His net worth is estimated at $14.2 billion.
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., and ranked by Forbes as the richest American, was third on 'The World's Billionaires' list with a net worth of approximately $8.7 billion.
Claiming the fourth spot with a personal fortune of $8 billion were the Canadian Reichmann brothers: Albert, Ralph and Paul. Their Olympia & York company owns more than 30 million square feet of office space throughout North America and has a stock portfolio worth $5 billion.
Rounding out the top five global billionaires or billionaire families on the Forbes list was 66-year-old Shin Kyuk-hyo, a South Korean real estate developer with $8 billion in holdings in his own country and Japan.
Forbes said the United States held onto first place in the world with 55 identifiable billionaires, compared with 41 billionaires in second-ranked Japan.
Other Americans who ranked among the world's richest people were Warren Edward Buffet, the Nebraska takeover specialist worth about $3.5 billion; John Werner Kluge, a Virginia entertainment executive whose net worth is about $3.2 billion, and Texan Henry Ross Perot, founder of Electronic Data Systems with wealth of approximately $3 billion.
Well-known names on the Forbes list included Canada's Charles Bronfman, co-chairman of the Seagram Co.; Robert Maxwell, the British publishing magnate, and France's Peugeot family.
Forbes excludes royal families and heads of state because their wealth is derived from political heritage more than from business efforts. The magazine also left out wealthy dictators like Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Forbes used recent stock prices, real estate valuations, price-earnings multiples and currency exchange rates to figure the net worth of the billionaires on its list.
