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Italy’s billionaires thrive on style and chocolate

Fashion designer Miuccia Prada and chocolatier Michele Ferrero have been named among the world's richest people in the annual global ranking of billionaires by the business magazine, Forbes.

Italy's billionaires thrive on style and chocolate
Giorgio Armani has a $9.9 billion fortune. Photo: Andrew Toth/Getty Images North America/AFP

Michele Ferrero and his kin are the richest family in Italy, with a $26.5 billion (€19.25 billion) fortune built on sugary products including Nutella, Kinder and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, according to the list published on Tuesday.

They are followed Leonardo Del Vecchio, who in 38th place is Italy’s wealthiest fashion mogul with assets worth $19.2 billion.

While Luxottica, the company Del Vecchio founded in 1961, may not be a household name, his sunglasses certainly are. Del Vecchio’s shades are sold the world over, including Oakley and Ray-Ban, while Luxottica also produces sunglasses for nearly every fashion house going, from Burberry to Versace.

Designers Miuccia Prada and Giorgio Armani, who came 102nd and 129th in the ranking respectively, are also further proof that style pays.

Working in the family fashion business has proved lucrative for Prada, who is worth $11.1 billion, while Armani boasts a $9.9 billion fortune.

Having founded his fashion house in 1975, Armani has since expanded his empire and has a 4.9 percent stake in Del Vecchio’s Luxottica. According to Forbes, he is also the proud owner of a $50-million yacht and ten houses.

Prada’s husband Patrizio Bertelli also makes an appearance on the billionaires’ list: with $6 billion to his name, he is the world’s 234th richest person.

While luxury goods continue to bankroll the richest Italians, both the Ferrero family and a second sweet-toothed billionaire prove that cheap products can be profitable. Augusto and Giorgio Perfetti share $7.2 billion between them, ranking 186th, owing to their family’s Perfetti Van Melle business built on the sale of chewing gum.

Also making an appearance is Stefano Pessina, described by Forbes as a Monaco resident who turned his family’s pharmaceutical company around, which has since merged to form Alliance Boots, netting $10.4 billion in the process.

The only Italian industrialists to make it into the top 500 are Paolo and Gianfelice Mario Rocca, who made their shared $6.3 billion fortune after their grandfather founded the Argentine-Italian steel company Techint Group.

Despite enduring a fairly dire 2013 with a string of court cases and being thrown out of Italian parliament, Silvio Berlusconi can at least retain his title as one of the world’s wealthiest.

The former prime minister and his family have $9 billion to their name, spread out across numerous business interests including broadcaster Mediaset and AC Milan football club.

The “poorest” of the Italian billionaires is Rosa Anna Magno Garavoglia, with a meagre $3.5 billion owing to the Italian drinks company Campari.

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UN

Why Norway is set to lose top spot on UN development ranking

Norway regularly takes the top spot on the United Nations Human Development Index, but a new parameter is set to change that.

Why Norway is set to lose top spot on UN development ranking
File photo: AFP

The UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) ranks countries on how well they provide conditions for people to reach their potential, using parameters including life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling and gross national income.

Norway is top of the 2020 HDI, a ranking not uncommon for the Nordic nation.

The report, which comes from the UN Development programme (UNDP), ranks countries in relation to progress on the UN’s global development targets. Like it was this year, Norway is regularly ranked the world’s top nation by the UN.

Despite this consistency, Norway can no longer call itself the ‘world’s best country’ based on the ranking, national broadcaster NRK writes.

A new addition to the ranking will include the costs to nature and the environment of gross national product. That will make CO2 admissions and individual carbon footprints part of the broader assessment of development.

According to the UNDP, emissions are a new and experimental lens through which to view development. But the inclusion of climate and the environment gives the index a different look.

When CO2 emissions and resource consumption are factored in, Norway finds itself in a much more moderate 16th place on the UN development ranking.

The adjusted list is yet to be published by the UN, but the Norwegian national broadcaster has been informed of the new positions, NRK states in the report.

Norway’s CO2 emissions of 8.3 tonnes per resident are among the 30 worst values of included countries, and it also fares poorly in a measurement of material resource use per resident, resulting in a lower overall position.

“Norway loses its top placing because of our high imprint on the planet. This is an import debate and it’s time we had it,” Bård Vegar Solhjell, director of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), told NRK.

READ ALSO: Norway ranked world's top nation for 'human development'

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