Nigeria, Nov. 16 -- Bill Gates, a foremost philanthropist who co-founded Microsoft, has returned this year as the world's richest man.

The latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index said Mr Gates, 64, now has $110 billion, deposing Amazon billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, into second place at $109 billion.

Bernard Arnault of Louis Vuitton luxury brand came third at $103 billion while Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was fifth at $74.5 billion.

Mr Gates' income was propelled by his Microsoft stocks, which went up 48 per cent in 2019. The company also secured a $10 billion defence contract for cloud infrastructure from the United States government.

But Mr Bezos' Amazon posted a lacklustre result in the third quarter of 2019, which saw the founder lose ...