Indian-American Amar Bose exits from Forbes billionaires list

WASHINGTON: Amar Bose, the Indian-American founder of Bose Corporation, known for its high-end audio products, has dropped off Forbes Magazine's list of the world's billionaires, apparently battered by the slumping US economy and setbacks in the consumer electronics business.

The 79-year-old acoustics expert and namesake of the famed Framingham-based audio company has dropped off Forbes Magazine's list of the world's billionaires, Worcester Business Journal.com reported.

In the September 2007 list of the richest Americans, Forbes put his net worth at $ 1.8 billion. By the same time in 2008, that was down to $ 1.5 billion. Now the wealth held by the former MIT assistant professor has apparently fallen below $ 1 billion, it said.

According to Forbes, he is believed to own a 60 per cent stake in Bose Corp, which, like many companies, has been going through difficult times in recent months. In January, the company announced that it would cut 10 per cent of its workforce, or about 1,000 jobs.



Forbes reported that the average worth of the world's billionaires has dropped 23 per cent over the past year. The total number of billionaires dropped from 1,125 to 793.