24th June, 2015
Nigeria’s 36 states have estimated their total indebtedness, including salaries owed workers at N658 billion, about $3.3 billion.
The money appears a big deal to the cash strapped governors who have constantly lamented the drop in oil prices but not to Amancio Ortega, the Spanish billionaire, Europe’s richest man and second richest man in the world.
Just on Monday, he added $2.3 billion to his fortune, as shares in Inditex, the Zara owner and world’s largest clothing retailer, rose 3.9 per cent.
The Spanish billionaire’s gain was $500 million more than the combined increase recorded by everyone else among the world’s 10 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The rise caps a surging performance for Ortega in the first half of this year. His fortune has risen $11 billion, to $72 billion, an 18 per cent rise, compared to the slight decline in the fortunes of Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, and Warren Buffett, the third-wealthiest person on earth.
While Ortega still trails Gates’s $86 billion net worth, Ortega’s fortune has increased 80 per cent in the past three years—double the growth rate of the Microsoft co-founder.
*Additional report by Bloomberg