Easy come easy go – that’s the old saying regarding this kind of thing. Few of us can ever hope to experience the joy involved with becoming a billionaire. Even fewer know what it’s like to then lose everything! But there are several billionaires who lost it all. Imagine it – you have enough money to afford pretty much anything you want. And then suddenly you don’t! That would suck. But it happens all too often these days. People who get used to having money tend to get used to spending money. They find themselves financially supporting their close friends and relatives. And they sometimes just wast it on cars and that. I mean, Mike Tyson bought a tiger. Here are 8 billionaires who lost it all.
Sean Quinn
Sean Quinn was once the most wealthy man in Ireland. But he was eventually forced to file for bankruptcy as a result of disastrous investments. Back in 2008, he was worth an estimated 4.7 billion Euros. That’s over 5.3 billion US dollars. He had lost it all just three years later. His family privately owned a successful holding and investment company called Quinn Group. They no longer own it. Sean Quinn’s investments left him with a 6 billion dollar bill, which would have pushed him into debt of over 1 billion Euros. On top of all this, he was sentenced to almost a year in prison. Other billionaires who lost it all probably look up to this guy.
Eike Batista
Eike Batista is an interesting case of billionaires who lost it all. He was a highly successful Brazilian oil mogul up until two years ago! It was in 2014 that Bloomberg revealed he was in debt. His net worth had been swiftly tumbling for several years leading up to this. Much of his wealth was tied up in the value of stocks in his companies. So when his companies value dropped, so did his wealth. In just three years he had accumulated a negative net worth of about 900 million dollars. This is quite far from where he was at his peak. He was Brazil’s richest person and the world’s 7th most wealthy.
Björgólfur Guðmundsson
Björgólfur Guðmundsson was the second person from Iceland ever to make a billion dollars. And that would sound a whole lot more Impressive if he didn’t end up losing it all. His son was actually the first Icelandic billionaire if you were wondering. So Iceland’s economy was booming up until the 2008 crisis as a result of the country’s banks being deregulated. Because of this, Iceland took a huge hit during the crisis. It was probably the worst affected of all European nations. With this, a lot of private businessmen lost fortunes. Björgólfur Guðmundsson was one of these. He went from a 1.1 billion fortune to a total of almost 850 million dollars in debt. He was the owner of West Ham football club, and majority owner of an Icelandic bank. Ironic then how he was eventually forced to declare bankruptcy.
Alberto Vilar
Alberto Vilar ran a highly successful investment firm was several decades. But it’s not about where you once were, it’s about here you are today. Today, he is in prison. And bankrupt. He was sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty of varies fraud charges. His investment firm collapsed in 2008, another casualty of the financial meltdown. This was the final nail in his financial coffin. The first nail was the huge sum of money he donated to art institutions. He gave an estimated 250 million dollars to institutions like Opera houses. I bet he regrets that now.
Allen Stanford
Allen Stanford is more than your classic con artist. He was your classic billionaire con artist. In 2012, he was handed a 110 year prison sentence after he got caught running a huge Ponzi scheme! The criminal justice system really takes Ponzi schemes seriously. His scheme tanked 8 billion dollars, allowing him to accumulate a 2 billion dollar fortune for himself. In 2009, the authorities caught on to him, so he attempted to literally flee the country. His plan to escape on a jet failed as the pilot refused to fly him. So it was easy for the FBI to capture him.
Bernard Madoff
Bernard Madoff is pretty notorious at this point. He also ran a Ponzi scheme, the largest Ponzi scheme in American history. He and his family lived the high life for most of their lives, as if everything was above board. None of them knew their father was running the scheme. But the authorities finally realized he was a criminal in 2008 after his own children revealed it. This was only briefly after their father had informed them what was really going on. So he was charged and pleaded guilty to 11 charges, resulting in a 150 year prison sentence. As he is currently 77 years old, he probably wont ever be released. A huge financial scandal surrounded his conviction as his business collapsed. An estimated 18 billion dollars was lost in real world money, and over 60 billion in theoretical money on the books. Thousands of investors lost their money and pension plans, and the financial world was shaken. Of all the billionaires who lost it all, Madoff is certainly the most notorious.
Patricia Kluge
Patricia Kluge started off as just a nobody, but she managed to marry a billionaire. After achieving this the next step was to divorce. So she divorced him after the marriage didn’t quite work out, making her incredibly wealthy from the settlement. She then got to work living the billionaire life on her massive new house, growing her own wine for some reason. She was pretty reckless when it came to her finances, basically spending all her money. Eventually she was forced to put her home up for sale. Her asking price was 100 million dollars – but this was eventually lowered to six and a half million when it was purchased by Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Speaking of Donald Trump, he should be on this list. Right now, he’s an extremely wealthy multi billionaire. But he was in trouble for a while. There was a time when he was briefly in debt for several billion dollars. He had nothing. Luckily, his clients supported him in a deal that regained him his fortune. So that’s what really happened. Some people think that’s he’s gone bankrupt several times. But those were just corporate bankruptcies, they don’t really count. So it worked out well for him considering he might become the next president of America. It’s a weird world. Easy come easy go – that’s the old saying regarding this kind of thing. Few of us can ever hope to experience the joy involved with becoming a billionaire. Even fewer know what it’s like to then lose everything! But there are Few billionaires who lost it all manage to make it all back, but Trump is more wealthy than ever right now.