NEW YORK, July 14: The view from these windows gets better every year. Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates topped Forbes magazine's list of the world's top billionaires for the third straight year, and he's pulling away from the pack as his software empire rides the stock market's record-setting wave.Gates' net worth doubled to 36.4 billion dollars over the past year.

That put him nearly nine billion dollars ahead of the second-place Walton family, the 27.6 billion dollars heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, Forbes said in its 11th annual rankings, released yesterday.Gates' personal wealth has swelled as investors more than doubled the stock price of Microsoft, whose windows operating system is the most popular for running personal computer functions.Forbes says in its July 28 issue that it limited the list of billionaires this year to the top 200 because the rapid rise of the global economy and stock markets has produced nearly 500 billionaires worldwide.

There were 447 on last year's list and just 96 when the magazine started the rankings 10 years ago.Wall Street's bull market also helped American billionaires double their spots in the top 10 ranking, with six slots. Last year, Asians made up half the top 10 list but this year only two were members:

Hong Kong real estate magnates Lee Shau Kee, No. 4 with 14.7 billion dollars and the Kwok brothers, No. 8 at 12.3 billion dollars.Of the American entries, investor Warren Buffett was No. 3 at 23.2 billion dollars and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen stood at No. 6 with 14.1 billion dollars.The other Americans in the top 10 were the Haas family of levi Strauss, seventh with 12.3 billion dollars, and the Mars candy family, at No. 9 with 12 billion dollars.In fifth place were the Oeri, Hoffman and Sacher families of Switzerland, heirs of the Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche, with 14.3 billion dollars. Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the Japanese real estate and transportation mogul who was once the world's richest businessman, slid to No. 22 from seventh last year as his country's property market continued to falter.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.