Top 10 richest Women in World: Walmart heiress, L'Oreal's boss...
Bill Gates stands atop Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's richest people as his net worth rose to $79.2 billion from $76 billion a year earlier.
Mexico telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim Helu ranked second, worth $77.1 billion, while Berkshire Hathaway Inc chief Warren Buffett was third, at $72.7 billion.
Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of Inditex SA, which includes clothing retailer Zara, was fourth at $64.5 billion, while Oracle Corp Chairman Larry Ellison was fifth at $54.3 billion.
Of a total 1,826 billionaires, 197 are women, up from 172 in 2014. That's a nice gain, but women still account for just a small percentage of the list — 11% of the total.
Of the record 197 women, the highest-ranked was Wal-Mart Stores Inc heiress Christy Walton, who was eighth at $41.7 billion.
France's Liliane Bettencourt, who got much of her wealth from cosmetics company L'Oreal SA, was 10th at $40.1 billion.
Many of the women among the billionaires ranks inherited their wealth from either their husbands or their fathers.
Just 29 of the 197 women are self-made billionaires. One newcomer in that subset is Elizabeth Holmes, who, at 31, is also the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. She dropped out of Stanford with an idea for a better blood testing company that uses just a drop of blood. Theranos was valued by investors in 2014 at $9 billion, and she owns half the company, giving her a $4.5 billion net worth.
Top 10 Forbes 2015 ranking of Richest Women:
1. Christy Walton $41.7bn (Wal-Mart), United States
2. Liliane Bettencourt $40.7bn (L'Oreal), France
3. Alice Walton $39.4bn (Wal-Mart), United States
4. Jacqueline Mars $26.6bn (Candy company Mars), United States
5. Maria Franca Fissolo $23.4bn (Ferrero Group), Italy
6. Laurene Powell Jobs $19.5bn (Apple, Emerson Collective), United States
7. Anne Cox Chambers $17bn (Cox Enterprises), United States
8. Susanne Klatten, $16.8bn (BMW, pharmaceuticals), United States
9. Johanna Quandt, $13.9bn (BMW), Germany
10. Iris Fontbona, $13.5bn (mining), Chile