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In the annual list made by Forbes magazine that reveals the ranking of millionaires in the world includes 2,578 individuals or families, seven are Chileans. Among them, in fifth place, is former President Sebastián Piñera.
Of the seven people representing Chile on the list, there is the matriarch of the Luksic family Iris Fontbona, who ranked 67th on the world list, being the ninth richest woman in the world and the first in Latin America. Forbes highlighted that Luksic's profits come from mining and selling beverages.
In second place is Julio Ponce Lerou, the businessman who is known for having been the son-in-law of dictator Augusto Pinochet, who in the midst of dictatorship positioned him in organizations that were state-owned and privatized at the time, being today director and president of several companies, including the Chemical and Mining Society of Chile (SQM).
Regarding the fortune of Ponce Lerou, who is still in charge of SQM, during 2020 he lost around USD 500 million, which means that he was left with capital valued in 2022 at $3.6 billion.
In third place is Horst Pulmann, businessman and founder of Cencosud, a Chilean multinational that operates in South America. Paulmann left his son Heike in charge of the company due to health problems.
The family's patriarch had fled Germany at the end of World War II, since his father was a member of the Nazi party. He arrived in Argentina when he was 13, where he worked as a telephone operator and lived for two years and then settled in Chile. In 2005, the Chilean National Congress granted him nationality by grace.
The fortune handled by the Paulmann family is around $3.3 billion, the same figure that was given by the Forbes magazine ranking a year ago.
In fourth place is Jean Salata, one of the richest people in Hong Kong, where he has been since 1989. He is the grandson of Europeans who went to Chile, although they left the country with the assumption of socialist Salvador Allende. The year he arrived in Hong Kong, he worked as Vice President of Finance at Shiu Wing Steel, a company run by his wife's family.
In fifth place is former president Sebastián Piñera, who decreased his fortunes by USD 100 compared to 2021, which meant a drop in the national ranking from fourth to fifth place. The estimated net worth is USD 2.8 billion.
In the revelation of the “Pandora Papers”, Piñera was one of the politicians mentioned. The leak of the documents linked the former president in the sale of shares of the Dominga mining project in 2010 in the British Virgin Islands.
The Dominga project was approved under Piñera's mandate and consists of a mining company in the vicinity of the Humnoldt archipelago, one of the “richest” ecosystems in the world.
Although Chilean billionaires have a great fortune, they are moving away from number one in the ranking Elon Musk, who has a net worth of $219 billion.
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