Richie rich

His name is Hassanal and he has 10 children.
He plays professional polo.
He owns a big Automotive Empire.
He is the Ruler, Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Finance Minister and Religious head of his country.
He remained the richest man on the planet for longer than any of us can remember.

Yes. The Sultan of Brunei. Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah.
Not a big name in comparison to the neighbouring Malaysia's rulers.

A small flash back :
Long long ago, in 2002, when compsci Bals and I saw a news clipping regarding the death of the Malaysian King, we were so impressed by his name that we decided to "memorise" it. We also had a competition on who would recite the name first. He won. I doubt if he still remembers the name, but let me recollect : Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Al Haj Ibni Al'Marhoum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah Al Haj.

So how did the Sultan get so much money?
From his father, he inherited a personal fortune estimated at $40 billion! Thats too much money. If he wanted to spend the whole thing in 100 years, imagine how much he would have to spend per day.
Vinayaga.. we are depending on you for exact numbers. For those who didn't know, our Vinayagamoorthy (eee : novell) is an expert in such calculations.

Well recent reports however suggest that his treasure has dwindled to a mere $10 billion - relatively peanuts.
It's not so easy to blow $30 billion, which is roughly equivalent to the entire annual income of all 125 million people living in Bangladesh
A sizeable chunk of it went on the Sultan's palace, a monstority that boasts 1,788 rooms and is larger than the Vatican. When the sultan's daughter turned 18 he bought her an Airbus. For himself he prefers his own Jumbo jet, originally designed to carry over 400 people.
Great skill in extravagance has also been acquired by his brother Jefri. He buys and plays super-cars like toys, gets bored very soon, buys new ones and store the old ones in any of the 4 huge garages forever along with tens of thousands of other cars.

So many cars that they are the top customers for Rolls-Royce and the likes.

Why did they buy so many McLaren and Dauer? Perhaps they like to share with their relatives. Perhaps their wives like to drive them for shopping. Perhaps they want to have a few spare cars when the normally used one is under servicing. Most likely, perhaps because money is nothing to his majesty (or should i say money was).