Most Of The World's Billionaires Made Their Money In These 5 Industries

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warren buffett

REUTERS

Warren Buffett, like nearly 20% of billionaires, made his fortune in finance.

There are 2,325 billionaires on the earth.

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And they control 4% of the world's wealth.

According to a new report from research firm Wealth-X, about 13% of billionaires inherited their fortune, 27% became billionaires from re-investing inherited wealth, and a full 60% of billionaires made their money themselves.

Let's drill into how they made all that cash.

"Opportunities for significant wealth gains can be found across most, if not all industries," the report reads, "but certain industries have been particularly important sources of billionaire wealth generation."

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Here are the top five:

billionaire industries

Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census 2014

Unsurprisingly, most billionaires make their dough in finance.

The fascinating trend here is just how much wealth industrial conglomerates are creating, which Wealth-X chalks up to globalization.

"Billionaires are increasingly gravitating towards diversified business ventures such as industrial conglomerates, especially in emerging markets," the reports says. "For Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the largest proportion of new billionaires made their fortunes in industrial conglomerates."

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The takeaway: If you want to achieve ridiculous wealth, go to Wall Street - or the developing world.

And attending one of these schools can't hurt, either.