A Quick Buck The World's Richest People (图)

At 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 9 five little-known financial executives and aposse of their children and colleagues crowded onto the balcony of theNew York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell. Their company, Fortress (nyse: FIG - news - people )Investment Group, which manages 4 hedge funds, 14 private equity fundsand 2 real estate vehicles, went public at $18.50. The shares commencedtrading at $35. By end of day--coincidentally the same day FORBESlocked in stock prices and exchange rates for our 2007 billionaireslist--the five men were worth a combined $10.7 billion and outed asbillionaires.

In the next seven days at least 90 stories ran innewspapers, wires and Web sites about the Fortress Five. Wesley Edens,45, Robert Kauffman, 43, and Randal Nardone, 51, former BlackRock (nyse: BLK - news - people ) co-workers, founded Fortress in 1998; they were joined four years later by former Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people )partners Peter Briger, 43, and Michael Novogratz, 42. In five yearsthey built funds under management from $1.2 billion to $29.9 billion.Since 2005 they've taken home a collective $650 million in fees.

Thesemen first became billionaires in December when they sold 15% ofFortress to Japan's Nomura Holdings for $890 million, valuing thecompany, of which they then owned 100%, at $5.9 billion. The offeringmerely pushed the former unknowns into the limelight, with which theyare still slowly getting comfortable.