Forbes list: JK Rowling fortune under vanishing spell The magazine said: "New information about Rowlings' estimated $160 million (£101 million) in charitable giving combined with Britain's high tax rates bumped the Harry Potter scribe from our list this year." For the third year in a row, the world's richest man is listed as the 72-year-old Mexican telecoms chief Carlos Slim Helu, despite a decline in his fortune from $74 billion to $69 billion. He is followed by the Microsoft owner Bill Gates and fellow American Warren Buffett, with $61 billion and $44 billion respectively. The Duke of Westminster dropped from 57th to 78th place in the list. In second place in the British ranks are the Reuben brothers, David and Simon, who listed as property investors and have a combined fortune of $9 billion, putting them at 100 on the global list. In third is Charles Cadogan, whose money also comes from property, in 230th place with $4.6 billion. Lakshmi Mittal, the steel maker and Indian citizen who is a long-time British resident, is in 20th place with $20.7 billion, having lost $10.4 billion in the past year. His is the biggest loss of fortune of anyone in the world, and he has dropped out of the top 10 rich list for the first time since 2004. There are two clothing billionaires in the top five - Bernard Arnault, the French owner of the H&M stores, has $41 billion while the fifth richest man, with $37.5 billion, is the Spaniard Amancio Ortega, who owns Zara. Other notable British names on the list include the Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, Lord Sainsbury, the supermarket chief, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, the proprietors of Telegraph Media Group, and Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative donor. There are 104 women in the club, including the American businesswomen Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, the slimming underwear, who appears on the list for the first time. At 41, she is the youngest self-made female billionaire, with a net-worth of $1 billion.