The list of 2013 Nigerian Richest and Biggest Artistes

2013 was a very big year for Nigerian music and quite a number of artistes lived up to expectation. We’re talking sold-out shows, monster singles, European tours and endorsement deals. NET presents the list of 2013 Nigerian Richest and Biggest Artistes.

1. Wizkid

2. Davido

3. P-Square

4. Tiwa Savage

5. D’banj

6. Iyanya

7. Olamide

8. Flavour

9. Kcee

10. Femi Kuti

11. Ice Prince

12. 2face Idibia

Bill gates now the richest man in the world, Aliko Dangote tops 30 in the list

Bill Gates recaptured the title of world's richest person from Mexican investor Carlos Slim by adding $15.8 billion to his wealth.


Bill Gates recaptured the title of world's richest person from Mexican investor Carlos Slim, the year's biggest gainer by adding $15.8 billion to his wealth according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world's 300 wealthiest individuals.

According to the index, the richest people on the planet got even richer in 2013, adding $524 billion to their collective net worth.

The aggregate net worth of the world's top billionaires stood at $3.7 trillion at the market close on Dec. 31, according to the ranking.

The biggest gains came in the technology industry, which soared 28 percent during the year.

Out of 300 people who appeared on the final ranking of 2013, only 70 registered a net loss for the 12-month period.

The second wealthiest man in the world, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, now is worth $72 billion.

The third wealthiest man in the world, Amancio Ortega, Spain´s richest man, owns 59 percent of Indetex, world´s largest clothing retailer, now worth $65.3 billion.

Bill Gates, the founder and chairman of Redmod, Washington-based Microsoft Corp, increased his wealth by $15.8 billion to $78.5 billion, according to the index, as shares of Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, rose 40 percent.

Gates's fortune has also benefited from a rally in stock holdings that include the Canadian National Railway Co. and sanitizing-products maker Ecolab Inc., which rose 34 percent and 45 percent respectively.

Less than a quarter of Gates’s fortune is held in Microsoft. He’s donated $28 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Christy Walton, worth $39.1 billion, the world's richest woman is the widow of John T. Walton, the second son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. After John's death in 2005, Christy inherited her husband's fortune, which consists of a 9.8 percent stake in Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the U.S., and a 29 percent stake in First Solar, a manufacturer of solar panels.

The world's 16th richest person, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Al Saud is the founder of Kingdom Holding, a Riyadh-based conglomerate that has investments in hotels, real estate and other publicly traded securities. He also holds an 80 percent stake in Rotana, one of the biggest media companies in the Middle East. The Saudi billionaire  remained the Middle East’s wealthiest person. He ended the year with a net worth of $32.4 billion, up $3.7 billion for the year.

Lynsi Torres, the 30-year-old president and owner of In-N-Out Burger, is the youngest female billionaire in the U.S. Her fast-food empire valued at more than $1 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg report said that Mark Zuckerberg was technology’s biggest dollar gainer, adding $12.4 billion to his net worth as Facebook Inc. shares more than doubled. The chief executive officer of the world’s largest social-networking company sold more than $2 billion in stock last month and donated another $1 billion to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

The fortunes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google Inc., surged about $10 billion each as the world’s largest search-engine business rose 58 percent.

Li Ka-Shing remains Asia’s richest man with a fortune of $30.2 billion. The 85-year-old controls the Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd. property Investment Company and conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.

The biggest gainer in Asia was Macau casino mogul Lui Che Woo, who added $14.2 billion to his net worth.

Robin Li, founder of Beijing-based Baidu Inc., dethroned Wang in December. China’s most-used search engine rallied 77 percent in 2013. The crown could change again. The country’s top four billionaires all have fortunes of $12 billion or more.

Fast Retailing Inc. Chairman Tadashi Yanai, Japan’s richest man, ended the year with a $20.9 billion fortune, up 66 percent in 12 months.

Russia´s richest person is Alisher Usmanov, 60, with a net worth of $20.2 billion. Russia's richest man controls USM Holdings, a British Virgin Islands-based entity with holdings in mining (Metalloinvest, Russia's largest iron ore producer), technology (Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga through Digital Sky Technologies, as well as Russian Internet provider Mail.ru) and telecommunications (MegaFon). He also co-owns the U.K. soccer team Arsenal.

Aliko Dangote is Africa’s richest person. The founder of Dangote Group, one of the continent’s largest conglomerates, added $9.2 billion during the year. He’s the 30th-richest person in the world.

Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, inherited her late husband's stakes in Walt Disney, the world's biggest media enterprise, and Apple, the most valuable company on the planet. A former investment banker, Jobs has helped create a number of commercial and charitable organizations, including natural foods maker Terravera, the Emerson Collective and College Trac. now worth $13.4 billion.

Iskender Makhmudov from Uzbekistan owns majority stakes in Ural Mining and Metallurgical Co., Russia's biggest copper miner, and Kuzbassrazrezugol, the country's second-largest producer of thermal coal. His railroad interests include stakes in Transmashholding, Russia's biggest manufacturer of railway cars, and Aeroexpress, Moscow's airport railway service, now worth $ 8.8 billion and ranks 141 in the list.

Nassef Sawisis, Egypt's richest person owns about one-third of construction and fertilizer company, OCI. His other assets include a 23.3 percent interest in Texas Industries and about 16 percent of French building materials operation LaFarge, which bought Orascom Cement for $12.8 billion in 2007. Sawiris' father founded OCI's predecessor, Orascom Construction, in 1950.

Eike Batista is the biggest loser in 2013. Brazil’s richest man, lost his most fortunes. His net worth declined more than $12 billion during the year. OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA, the oil company that transformed him into Brazil’s richest man, filed for bankruptcy protection in October. Batista was the world’s eighth-richest person in March 2012, and now has a negative net worth, according to the Bloomberg ranking.

A minicar named Hustler? japan's brand names raise eyebrows

Suzuki Motor Corp had little idea that the name "Hustler" for its new, boxy minicar aimed at outdoorsy Japanese customers might cause mirth among English speakers for its association with an adult magazine - but it's not alone.

Plucking words from foreign dictionaries without checking how they might be received by native speakers appears to be a habit at Japanese companies, which have produced countless products with unintentionally unsavory names.

The name Hustler was chosen to conjure the image of agility, as well as invite nostalgia from customers who remembered an off-road motorbike released in 1969 called the Hustler 250, said a Suzuki public relations officer.

Foreign visitors might instead recall the sexually explicit magazine started by porn magnate Larry Flynt as competition to Playboy, or associate the word with obtaining money through illegal activities or vice industries.

The Hustler follows a string of other Japan-made cars to bemuse speakers of foreign languages, such as Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd's Naked in 2000 and Isuzu Motors Ltd's 1983 Bighorn.

Spanish speakers were taken aback by Mazda Motor Corp's Laputa, a derogatory word for sex worker, while Mitsubishi Motors Corp sold its Pajero model as the Montero in Spanish-speaking countries as the former is slang for sexual self-pleasure.

Japanese confectionery often yields a chuckle from foreign tourists, too. A tubular chocolate snack called Collon and an isotonic sports drink named Pocari Sweat, for example, bear unfortunate associations with bodily functions.

While many brand names around the world don't translate across borders - the Iranian washing powder Barf, which means snow in Persian, or a Swedish chocolate bar called Plopp, for example - Japanese companies often use foreign words for how they sound, with little regard to their original meaning.

This is partly due to foreign words having an exotic ring, much like how Chinese characters are seen by Westerners as poetic or profound choices for tattoos even if the results don't make much sense to native speakers. But Japanese firms often fail to check if a name 'travels' because of historical reasons, marketers say.

"Japan really is an island nation, and was historically closed for a long time. Also, the domestic market is so big that companies can be successful without thinking globally," said Masamichi Nakamura, executive director at global marketing firm Interbrand's branch in Tokyo.

But Japan is far from having a patent on unintentionally salacious brand names: websites like Engrish.com revel in strange uses of English across Asia, including neighboring South Korea's snack maker Lotte Confectionary Co Ltd's Crunky Ball Nude.

BlackBerry steps back on handset business, shares jump

BlackBerry Ltd said on it was entering a handset production deal that lowers the risk it will have to take more massive writedowns on unsold smartphones, and its shares surged even though it posted dismal quarterly results.

The stock rose as much as 17 percent after the company announced the five-year partnership with FIH Mobile Ltd. The Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwan's Foxconn will initially build low-end devices for sale in Indonesia and other emerging markets. BlackBerry said it hoped to expand the fledgling relationship to its top-of-the-line smartphones.

The deal is unconventional in that BlackBerry will no longer pay upfront for components used in the devices made on its behalf in Foxconn's Indonesian and Mexican factories.

Instead, Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, will take a share of profit on each device in return for taking on inventory management, which can result in writedowns if smartphones go unsold. Foxconn will also help with developing, designing and distributing the handsets.

Chief Executive John Chen, who took the helm at BlackBerry last month, said he expected the Foxconn deal to help BlackBerry's handset business turn cash-flow positive, and for the company as a whole to post a profit for the fiscal year that begins in early 2015.

"It's almost like BlackBerry is disposing of its consumer handset business without actually disposing of it," said Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who likened the deal to what Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell have done with laptops.

The move, which comes a month after BlackBerry said it was giving up on a plan to sell itself, helped take the sting out of the massive, $4.4 billion loss that it posted for the quarter ended November 30, as smartphone sales shriveled.

A new line of devices running on BlackBerry 10 software has failed to gain traction, forcing the company to write off $1.6 billion of inventory and supply commitments for the quarter. The previous quarter it wrote off $934 million for unsold phones.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company pioneered the concept of on-the-go email, and for years its pagers and phones were must-have devices for political and business leaders. But in recent years it has lost its once-dominant market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and a slew of smartphones powered by Google Inc's Android operating system.

As of Thursday's close, the stock had fallen 47 percent this year. It was last trading up 14 percent on Nasdaq at $7.13.

"The most immediate challenge for the company is how to transition the devices operations to a more profitable business model," said Chen, who is credited with turning around Sybase, a database and mobile software company, before it was sold to German software company SAP AG in 2010.

Chen has said he is counting on strong growth in BlackBerry's service business, which manages smartphone traffic on the internal networks of corporate and government clients.

"Just jettisoning all the stuff and driving on with the part of the business that makes money makes a heck of a lot of sense to me and that is very clearly where Chen is going," said Ross Healy, a portfolio manager at Macnicol & Associates who owns a small number of BlackBerry shares.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Kantar Comtech, said the deal is a good move for Foxconn, the world's largest electronic parts manufacturer and a major partner of Apple Inc.

"This might be the first step for them to try and diversify, and experiment with putting their brand on the products they make," she said.

DEVICES ARE A CHALLENGE

In his first presentation to analysts after the release of BlackBerry's results, Chen struck an upbeat tone tempered with a heavy dose of realism. The mix may have helped soothe nervous investors who had sharply lowered their expectations for BlackBerry after a string of disappointing news.

"It's clear that he's not the old guard, he's not there trying to do what Lazaridis and Thorsten were up to. He's actually been taking some concrete steps," said Mark McKechnie, an analyst at Evercore Partners, referring to BlackBerry's founder Mike Lazaridis and Thorsten Heins, Chen's predecessor.

Chen moved quickly to stamp his authority on BlackBerry, hiring several former colleagues from his time at Sybase and SAP for senior roles in corporate strategy, marketing, and enterprise strategy, a key unit in the stripped-back company.

BlackBerry sold about 4.3 million handsets in the third quarter, with older BlackBerry 7 models accounting for about 3.2 million of that number.

The company recognized hardware revenue on 1.9 million devices, down from 3.7 million in the previous quarter.

On a brighter note, its cash pile grew to $3.2 billion from $2.6 billion a quarter earlier, but that included $1 billion raised by issuing convertible notes to a group of investors last month after calling off a months-long search for a buyer.

Service revenue slipped 13 percent as fewer people paid to use BlackBerry's secure network, and the company said that level of decline could be expected to continue.

Along with the writedown on unsold phones, the company also slashed by $2.7 billion the carrying value of some long-lived assets, mostly licensing deals made when it was far larger.

QUARTERLY RESULTS

The company reported a third-quarter net loss of $4.4 billion, or $8.37 a share, compared with year-earlier net income of $9 million, or 2 cents a share.

Excluding the inventory writedowns and impairment charges, the loss was $354 million, or 67 cents a share.

Analysts on average had expected a loss of 44 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue fell to $1.19 billion from $2.73 billion as increased uncertainty about the company's fate led to further sales erosion. Wall Street had forecast $1.6 billion.

Morningstar analyst Brian Colello said BlackBerry's turnaround strategy was more important than its latest operating results.

"I don't think it's a surprise that the revenue, operating margin and the business continues to decline. I think the bigger question is, what is the turnaround story at this point?" he said. "They have a lot of different assets that could point the company in different directions."

Keep looking up,Jose Mourinho tells Chelsea

Jose Mourinho has urged Chelsea to “enjoy the moment” and make sure they overtake at least one of their Premier League title rivals in Thursday’s traditional Boxing Day fixtures.

Swansea City are the visitors to Stamford Bridge on a day that also sees leaders Liverpool travel to Manchester City, who are in third place.

Just two points separate the top five, with Arsenal second, Chelsea fourth and Everton fifth.

“The best way to get the first objective, which is top four and Champions League (qualification), is to be close in the title race, so let’s enjoy the moment,” Mourinho said.

“I know Swansea are a good team with good players and a certain style of play, but we are two points behind and two title contenders are playing each other. It is important for us to win.”

Chelsea drew 0-0 at Arsenal on Monday, the day after Swansea had been beaten 2-1 at home by Everton.

“It is a bit more difficult for us because we played on Monday and our opponents played on Sunday, so they had one more day to rest — and one more day is a lot,” Mourinho added.

“But I hope Stamford Bridge is there for us. When I say Stamford Bridge I mean Stamford Bridge with noise, because last Boxing Day Chelsea were 11 points behind the leaders — Chelsea were out of the title race — and we are there now.

“We are two points behind both leaders, so we have reasons to keep going.”

Mourinho has not tasted a traditional English festive period of hectic fixture scheduling since 2006, having enjoyed winter breaks in Italy and Spain since then while in charge of Inter Milan and Real Madrid.

“I love it,” he said. “I don’t play, of course, so for the players it is more difficult than it is for me, but I always feel very proud to be working on Boxing Day and giving the people what they want.

“My wife and my kids, they are fantastic. They understand completely that I love to do it. They are in England, they are not with the Portuguese family.

“They miss their family, but they know that I have to do it and I am very happy to do it.”

Swansea’s hopes of recording a first victory in six Premier League games have been hit by the loss of forward Michu for six weeks.

The Spain international requires surgery on an ankle problem and the blow comes shortly after winger Nathan Dyer suffered a serious ankle injury at Norwich City.

“It’s not good news,” said manager Michael Laudrup.

“Unfortunately he will need an operation. It can be done in the next week and he should be back playing in around a month and a half.”

The growing injury problems mean Laudrup is reconsidering his approach to the January transfer window.

“What has happened in the last couple of weeks has changed things,” the Dane admitted.

“We will probably do something now in January and try to add something that we don’t have in certain positions. The numbers are a bit down and that is risky for the last four months of the season.”

Ben Davies, the Swansea left-back, has been rewarded for his impressive form with a contract extension that will keep him at the club until 2017.

The 20-year-old said: “It wasn’t a difficult decision and it’s always great to sign a new deal and commit my future to the club.”

Apostolic Faith cleric preaches righteousness, love

The District Superintendent, Apostolic Faith, West Africa, Rev. Emmanuel Adeniran, has urged Christians to embrace righteousness as a virtue in order to earn divine favour, which Nigeria needed to move forward.

Adeniran said this at the Christmas concert which held at the church Campground in Gbagada, Lagos.

He said that any nation with the fear of God, and filled with righteousness, would earn Gods’ favour.

He said, “I am praying that the lord god of heaven this Christmas will protect all Nigerians as they travel to enjoy this season.

“But beyond that I am praying that Nigerians will find a place for God in their heart, let Nigeria open their hearts, open their homes and let the quicken spirit of God deliver us from the scorn of corruption.

“I am praying that the glory and the goodness of God will be restored to this country, just as we had in those days.”

Also speaking, the Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Toyin Ayinde, advised Nigerians to show love to their fellow men through cheerful giving, especially considering the needy during the Yuletide.

He admonished Christians to emulate Christ in the spirit of the season, adding that the season was a season of love.

He urged Christians to spare some time to visit the lonely and the poor, the homeless and those in hospitals and prisons.

“What the birth of Christ has brought us is salvation; all we need do is cast our care upon him because he cares for us, so we don’t have to have any fear in the New Year, he said.

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