Centibillionaire

A centibillionaire is a media term for a person who has gained or exceeded the net worth of at least one hundred billion units of currency, such as United States dollars (USD), U.K pounds or euros.

The use of the prefix “centi” technically refers to one hundredth, or 1/100 to the standard SI prefix, not a hundred. The correct term is hectobillionaire; however, due to popular usage, centibillionaire is the general term used by newspapers and financial articles. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Hectomillionaire vs. Centimillionaire |url=http://xona.com/2006/12/17.html |quote= |publisher= Xona.com |date= |accessdate=2008-02-14 ]

There has only been one person to reach the $100 billion mark. On April 8, 1999, Bill Gates' net worth officially exceeded that amount after a large gain in the value of shares of Microsoft in the stock market. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Gates becomes first man to top $100bn
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/314426.stm|quote= |publisher= BBC News|date= |accessdate=2008-02-14 ] It peaked at $101 billion before falling due to the Dot-com bubble. It had been predicted that he would become a trillionaire by 2004. As of 2008, the closest person to becoming the second centibillionaire is Carlos Slim Helú, with an estimated worth of $72.4 billion and an annual increase of $14 billion.

However, if adjusted for inflation, Bill Gates would be the twentieth person to have reached $100 billion, after John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and others, according to the 2008 list of most wealthy historical figures.

ee also

* Wealthy historical figures 2008
* Wealthiest non-inflated historical figures

References