Thursday,
March 06, 2008
Belusconi
Slips From Top
The
ANNOTICO Report
Michele
Ferrero, Nutella, chocolate spread and Tic Tac sweets mogul is
now #1 with 11
Italian
fashion icon Giorgio Armani
rates #4, and the Benetton family members are rated #5.
Berlusconi -- No Longer
Reuters
Thursday, Mar 6, 2008
ROME, March 6 (Reuters)
- Weeks ahead of Italy's election for prime minister, candidate Silvio Berlusconi lost a different kind of competition --
who has the country's deepest pockets.
The billionaire
media mogul was knocked off the top of Forbes' list of the richest Italians by
the man behind Tic Tac sweets and chocolate spread Nutella, Michele Ferrero.
Ferrero's $11 billion in wealth
trumped the Berlusconi family's $9.4 billion.
The upset ended a
12-year run for Berlusconi, a two-time prime minister who stormed to the top of
the Forbes' list in 1996, after building a business empire that stretched from
the small screen to the soccer pitch.
Worse still,
Berlusconi isn't even the second-richest Italian. That glory goes to sunglasses
king Leonardo Del Vecchio, whose company Luxottica
boasts brands like RayBan. "Berlusconi isn't
King of the super-rich anymore," read the headline in left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper, a critic of the 71-year-old
conservative politician.
Ranked the
world's 90th richest man, down from 51st last year, Berlusconi is still nearly
twice as wealthy as Italian fashion icon Giorgio Armani. He is three times as
rich as any of the Benetton family billionaires, according to Forbes.
(Writing by Phil
Stewart; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSL0685922920080306
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