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Who is the richest person in the world??? One newspaper article I found says this:

Ingvar Kamprad, the Swede who founded furniture retail chain IKEA, has overtaken Microsoft's Bill Gates as the world's richest man. Ingvar Kamprad, 77 has a personal fortune of 400 billion crowns ($53 billion). Gates's fortune is put at $47 billion, according to the latest list of the world's rich in U.S. Forbes magazine, SVT2 said.

Kamprad, known for frugal habits such as flying economy class, lives in Switzerland and no longer takes part in the daily running of IKEA, but has kept ownership of the company with more than 180 stores in over 30 countries in the family.

SVT2 said the dollar's slide against other currencies is the main reason why Kamprad has now overtaken Gates.



Yet, in another newspaper report:

On Sunday, April 4, the Reuters news service published a story crediting IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad with a fortune of more than $53 billion, exceeding Gates's $46.6 billion net worth.

By Monday, April 5, the story had been quickly debunked. IKEA spokeswoman Marianne Barner stated strongly that the report was just wrong, according to the Associated Press.

She contended that the magazine simply estimated the value of the entire company and assigned it to Kamprad. But the furniture maven hasn't fully owned IKEA since 1982, when he donated ownership to the Dutch Stichting INGKA Foundation.

Luisa Kroll, a Forbes associate editor who helps put together the magazine's list of the world's wealthiest people, agrees that the accounting is way off.

"Kamprad has several holding companies that own stakes in each other," she points out, suggesting the Veckans Affaerer analysis included incorrect "double counting" of assets.

Forbes editor Kroll stands by her magazine's calculations, which put Kamprad's wealth at $18.5 billion, thirteenth on the 2004 list of the world's wealthiest, which came out in February.

She does say that Kamprad's assets have grown steadily in dollar terms. "We even thought he might slip into the top ten this year," says Kroll, "but not up to number one."



As of March 11th 2005, Forbes has ranked the top ten richest men on the planet:
1. William Gates III
2. Warren Buffett
3. Lakshmi Mittal
4. Carlos Slim Helu
5. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
6. Ingvar Kamprad
7. Paul Allen
8. Karl Albrecht
9. Lawrence Ellison
10. S Robson Walton


Yet, these credible sources seem to be disagreeing with each other, which means I still haven’t found my answer. Who is the richest person in the world?