The wait is over, folks. The Forbes Billionaire list is out! But…hasn’t it been out, in the form of Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires? Why, yes—it has. With the tagline “See who’s winning & losing the most money right now,” the site keeps you current with 15-minute updates of its data.
Forbes rolled that out last year, just around the time Bloomberg launched its real-time-tracker of the gripping movements in personal mega-worth (signing on former Forbes editor Matthew G. Miller to help it do so). Bloomberg’s online index offers various visualizations organizing the top 100 billionaires, as well as detailed summaries of their portfolios and handy factoids like “[m]ember of Bryn Mawr College’s all-time swim team roster” and “said he values his ex-wife’s calligraphy.”
Since Bloomberg has entered the billionaire-hunting game, it has reported on its discovery of what it calls “hidden billionaires“—mega-wealthy people whose riches had previously escaped the notice of other lists (they don’t say which ones). Notable findings include Goebbels’ step-children and the In-N-Out burger scion.
Forbes insists it’s unruffled. “Forbes has been valuing global billionaires for 27 years, and has the biggest database, best sources and most-honed methodology in the world,” Forbes editor Randall Lane tells Quartz by email. “We find the imitation by others the most sincere form of flattery.”
The rich list technology arms race is one thing. But what happens when the billionaires start choosing sides? That may be happening—Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, for one, is now making it clear that he is very upset about the mere $20 billion that Forbes says he’s worth:
The prince’s Kingdom Holdings says it will no longer cooperate with Forbes due to “what appear to be intentional biases and inconsistencies in the Forbes valuation” process, according to a report by Business Insider. (Note that Kingdom’s press release refers to text that doesn’t appear on the Forbes digital profile.) Here are some examples from the press release, again via Business Insider:
- The application of differing standards of proof for different individuals and organizations resulting in an arbitrary and confusing set of standards that seems demonstrably biased against the Middle East. For example, the valuations of other emerging markets such as the Mexican stock exchange are accepted while those of the Tadawul are not.
- Unexplained and purely arbitrary discounts applied to holdings not backed up by brokerage statements when pre-IPO investments such as those in Twitter and China’s 360Buy would not appear on any brokerage statement, and after impressing on Forbes that KHC’s investments are covered by confidentiality agreements.
Forbes responded with a statement saying it “has been investigating the prince’s finances for several years, and will detail its findings in a feature story in the magazine, which will be released online tomorrow morning.”
While Kingdom says it will not be working with Forbes, it will be cooperating with Bloomberg’s index, which the press release says uses “a more accurate method of calculating financial holdings.” Here’s how that worked out for the prince:
Readers can have a look for themselves. Bloomberg’s list offers a detailed explanation of its methodology, which Miller says is provided in the interest of promoting transparency. “We don’t believe this information should be proprietary,” he tells Quartz. ”There isn’t one billionaire [on the list] who doesn’t control a certain corner of the world economy. And the world has a right to know how much influence and how much wealthy they yield.”
By comparison, Forbes’ published methodology is somewhat vaguer. “The nature of estimates by definition requires judgment calls,” Forbes’ Lane tells Quartz, responding to a question about methodology.
Whatever the difference in Forbes’ and Bloomberg’s accounting and reporting methods is, it seems to be significant. There are consistent discrepancies—sometimes really large ones—between the two lists. For example, Charles Koch’s net worth on Bloomberg’s index is $44.4 billion, while on Forbes it’s $34.0. And the Bloomberg tally of China’s Zong Qinghou’s $17.1 billion is winnowed down to $11.6 billion in the Forbes list. With the notable exception of global number one Carlos Slim, Bloomberg’s calculations are higher than Forbes’ on most entries.
Both sites say they give billionaires like Prince Alwaleed an opportunity to set the record straight—but that doesn’t necessarily make things easier. As Forbes’ Lane told Dealbook last year, the billionaires could have ulterior motives since ”some want to be higher, some want to be lower.”
One final divergence between the rival news organizations: Forbes lists billionaire Michael Bloomberg in its rankings. The policy of Bloomberg’s rich list makers is not to include him.