Unsurprisingly as stock markets rose and the world witnessed one of the biggest IPOs in recent times, the richest people in the world grew wealthier in 2014, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Unsurprisingly as stock markets rose and the world witnessed one of the biggest IPOs in recent times, the richest people in the world grew wealthier in 2014, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The net worth of the world’s 400 wealthiest billionaires on 29 December, 2014 stood at $4.1 trillion, the index, which is issued by Bloomberg, showed.  

The biggest gainer was Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding, China’s largest e-commerce company. Ma added $25.1 billion to his fortune. Ma, who has a $28.7 billion fortune, briefly overtook Li Ka-shing as Asia’s richest person.

The rise in global equity markets helped propel such wealth; as at 30 December, total returns on the MSCI World Index of developed countries’ shares (adding capital growth to reinvested dividends) were 5.63 per cent. Over five years, the annualised return was just over 10 per cent.

The expansion in wealth comes despite a perceived rise in geopolitical tensions (Iraq, Ukraine, oil price slump) and concerns that some regions of the world, such as the eurozone, continue to struggle to fire up their economies six years after the financial crisis of 2008.