Let’s be honest: the aim of most investors is to get rich, or at least get richer. And some have succeeded at this spectacularly.
Fund managers, traders and those with significant stakes in investment businesses dominate the ranks of the wealthy as seen in publications such as the Forbes Billionaires List and the Sunday Times Rich List.
Below, we look at the top 10 investors, traders and asset management honchos globally and tell you how they made it so big. Figures are drawn primarily from the 2024 Forbes Billionaires List.
1. Warren Buffet
- Net worth: $147 billion (£116 billion)
- Source of wealth: Investments
It perhaps comes as little surprise that the wealthiest investor in the world is also the most famous.
In the span of a career spanning more than 70 years, Warren Buffet has seen his net worth both rise and fall steeply – but increase massively over the long-term nonetheless. This perhaps speaks to the success of his investment philosophy, which involves seeking out companies undervalued by the stock market which may take decades to truly prove their worth.
This also underscores Buffet’s resilience and persistence; despite having suffered blows from numerous market sell-offs, Berkshire Hathaway – the former textile company which the fund manager transformed into an investment group starting in 1965 – has stuck to his buy-and-hold approach.
Much of Buffet’s success comes from building up cash and using it to buy companies at depressed valuations when the economy takes a turn for the worst. One notable example was his decision to buy stock in Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis, making a profit of $3.7 billion within three years.
This attitude is summed up in his oft-quoted motto “be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful”.
2. Stephen Schwarzman
- Net worth: $39 billion (£30 billion)
- Source of wealth: Private equity
In 1985, Stephen Schwarzman teamed up with his then boss at investment bank Lehman Brothers Peter Peterson to found The Blackstone Group, which has since grown to become the largest private equity investment business in the world.
Now managing more than $1 trillion in assets under management, Blackstone has long been a successful backer of globally recognised companies. These include the Hilton hotel chain, which under Schwarzman’s leadership as CEO the group took private in 2007 and re-listed in 2013 for a $7 billion profit.
Such savvy deal-making has made Stephen Schwarzman’s net worth skyrocket and him a very wealthy man. When Blackstone went public in 2007, he sold part of his stake in the group for $684 million. But most of his money appears to have been made from his executive compensation – in 2022 he was paid $253 million, more than any other CEO in the US.
3. Ken Griffin
- Net worth: $43 billion (£33 billion)
- Source of wealth: Hedge fund
By the metric that counts for most who take up the trade, Ken Griffin is the most successful hedge fund manager in the world.
The 56-year-old founder, chief executive officer and co-chief investment officer of hedge fund Citadel and its market maker spin-off Citadel Securities, has seen the businesses take Ken Griffin’s net worth to $43bn as of November.
Citadel LLC, in which Griffin holds an 80% stake, was founded in 1990 with initial assets under management of $4.6 million. It now runs more than $63 billion. The success of the hedge fund led Griffin to become the youngest person on the 2003 Forbes 400 list at the (relatively) young age 34, with $650 million.
Yet the bulk of Griffin’s wealth comes from Citadel’s Securities, which was recently valued at $22bn. This comes as the business has risen to become the main buyer and seller of equities in the US, 22 years after it was founded.
4. Thomas Peterffy
- Net worth: $34 billion (£26 billion)
- Source of wealth: Trading business
“I think the way a CEO runs his company is a reflection of his background. Business is a collection of processes, and my job is to automate those processes so that they can be done with the greatest amount of efficiency.”
These words of Thomas Peterffy, the founder of trading platform Interactive Brokers, explain an approach which has paid dividends – both literally and figuratively.
The 80-year-old former architectural draughtsman and computer programmer started in finance by trading options on the New York Stock Exchange, He would trade during the day and develop computerised trading models in his spare time, which ultimately led to the establishment of Interactive Brokers in 1978.
His near 75% stake in the platform has helped amass more than $34 billion net worth for Thomas Peterffy, making him the 46th richest man in the world.
5. Changpeng Zhao
- Net worth: $57.3 billion (£44.3 billion)
- Source of wealth: Crypto exchange business
Canadian billionaire Changpeng Zhao may have been in the news recently for legal issues related to Binance, the crypto currency exchange he founded in 2017, but he remains an extremely wealthy man nonetheless.
Forty-seven year old Zhao, who was born in China and studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal, began building his fortune in 2013 when he sold his apartment in Shanghai to go “all in” in bitcoin.
He then pursued a range of crypto-related ventures, culminating in the launch of Binance four years later. After it raised an initial $15 million in an initial coin offering, the firm became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume within eight months.
Changpeng Zhao’s net worth from the ownership of Binance led him to become the 26th-richest person in the world, Forbes stated in July. He had previously said nearly all of his money was in the form of cryptocurrency.
However, Zhao was forced to step down as CEO of the company in November 2023 after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued him for alleged violations of US securities rules. He also paid a $50 million fine and served four months in prison as part of a guilty plea to US federal charges including operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
This goes to show that sometimes great (and lucrative) innovation carries great risks, both for businesses and individuals.
6. Masayoshi Son
- Net worth: $32.7 billion (£25.3 billion)
- Source of wealth: Investments
For a long time, eccentric visionary Masayoshi Son had the dubious distinction of being the person to lose the most money in history, after shares in his SoftBank investment company plunged by $59 billion in the 2000 dot com crash.
Given that Masayoshi Son’s net worth has since bounced back to now rank as 55th richest person in the world, there may be a lesson there for others: however bad things may get, perseverance and self-belief can win out in the end.
Son still holds a 29% stake in Softbank, which he founded in 1981 as a software distributor. The firm has since grown to oversee a portfolio of investments worth more than $180 billion.
7. Jim Simons
- Net worth: $31.4 billion (£24.3 billion)
- Source of wealth: Quant hedge fund
James Harris Simons passed away in May this year, and it would be remiss not to include him on any list of the greatest investors of all time.
After graduating 1962 from Berkeley with a PhD in Mathematics, Simons worked with the US National Security Agency to break codes and on a number of academic projects. In 1976 he received the Oswald Veblen Prize of the American Mathematical Society, the highest accolade in the sub-discipline of geometry.
Jim Simons’ net worth was generated from the hedge fund he founded Monemetrics, which was later renamed to Renaissance Technologies, in 1978. He was among the first to realise that cutting edge mathematics could be applied in the world of investment.
This insight reaped spectacular success for the business. The firm’s flagship Medallion Fund, returned more than 60% per annum across the 30 years after it was founded in 1988. It was closed to new investors outside the firm in 1993.
8. Abigail Johnson
- Net worth: $29 billion (£22.5 billion)
- Source of wealth: Investment platform business
Abigail Johnson’s net worth and wealth comes from her stake in Fidelity Investments, which she has led as CEO since 2014.
She took over the firm from her father Edward Johnson III. He had in turn inherited the top role from Edward Johnson II, who founded the group 1940.
Abigail Johnson made the choice to enter the family business at a young age, drawn by a natural curiosity in her parents’ jobs. She owns around 29% of the Boston-based global investment business, which oversees $5.5 trillion In assets.
9. Jeff Yass
- Net worth: $27.6 billion (£21.4 billion)
Jeff Yass cut his teeth as a professional gambler in the 1970s. In 1987 he co-founded Susquehanna International Group alongside five other entrepreneurs.
The firm has since grown to become one of the largest traders of stocks in the US. In addition to its trading business, the group invests in a range of sectors including healthcare and technology. It is a major owner in social media giant TikTok’s parent group ByteDance.
10. Andrea Pignataro
- Net worth: $27.5 billion (£21.3 billion)
ION Group CEO Andrea Pignataro founded the financial software business in 1999 while working as a trader at Salomon Brothers in London. He had initially moved to the city from Italy to pursue a Phd in Mathematics at Imperial College.
As of 2023, ION had $27 billion in net assets in 2023 and owns firms including financial markets platform Dealogic and trading software group Fidessa.
“I like learning, imagining, building, transforming and seeing opportunities where others only see hurdles,” Pignataro told Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore in 2023.
Robin has more than six years of experience as a financial journalist, most of which were spent at Citywire, and covers the latest developments in the investing, trading and currency transfer space. Outside of work, he enjoys reading literature and philosophy and playing the piano.
You can contact Robin at robin@goodmoneyguide.com
