"I firmly believe that attention to the needs of employees, to their families, to their lives even when they stop working, cements a mutually beneficial social cohesion." This is the sentence that Forbes has chosen as representative of Giovanni Ferrero in the profile that the American magazine has reserved for the industrialist from Alba, among those of the 2,688 richest men and women on the planet. A list now led by the Tesla founder Elon Musk, at the expense of Jeff Bezos (Amazon) who lost his head after four years of undisputed domination.

The president of the confectionery group from Langhe has been a fixed presence for years, since the death of his father Michele, after having taken his place on the highest step of an Italian podium that this year, too, maintains its supremacy, so much so that to find some new element with respect to the past, it is necessary to look at more negligible details, such as the amount of assets ascribed to him this time, due to estimates whose formulation and precision remain difficult to express.

Twelve months ago, the activities linked to a group that employs 36,000 collaborators worldwide and sells sweets and snacks for 12.3 billion euros a year earned the heir to the industrial family of Alba a fortune valued at 35.1 billion dollars. One year later, those same enormous resources (it should be noted that the Alba-based multinational is not listed and that its capital is held entirely by the family) would have grown by something like 1, 1 billion, reaching a total of 36.2 billion dollars, enough to keep at a distance the usual rival Leonardo Del Vecchio (EssilorLuxottica), who, in turn, confirms his second place in the Italian ranking with 27.3 billion, up from 25.1 billion.

And to think, Forbes notes in this regard, that at the end of 2021 the gap between the two was even zeroed and that for a few days the palm of the richest had been the prerogative of the Venetian entrepreneur of glasses. Having re-established the balance, completing the podium behind the two is the fashion designer Giorgio Armani (7.8 billion), up two positions from a year ago, who in turn precedes Silvio Berlusconi (7.1 billion), also up two positions from April 2021, when he was sixth.

Returning to Ferrero, an industrialist with a passion for literature (last November his eighth novel was published), the increase in his assets does not prevent him from losing two positions in the top ten of the European Paperoni: he was 7th and has now found himself 9th (he is 37th in the world), in a list always led by the French luxury magnate Bernard Arnault, who with a fortune that has risen to 158 billion dollars would also be the third richest man in the world.