At 1,109 carats, big as a tennis ball, the world’s largest uncut diamond was expected to shatter records at a June Sotheby’s auction. How did the dazzling stone go unsold? An exclusive reveals what went wrong.

But even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen.

Over the years, William R. Ponsoldt had earned tens of millions of dollars building a string of successful companies. He had renovated apartment buildings in the New York City area. Bred Arabian horses. Run a yacht club in the Bahamas, a rock quarry in Michigan, an auto-parts company in Canada, even a multibillion-dollar hedge fund. Now, as he neared retirement, Mr. Ponsoldt, of Jensen Beach, Fla., had a special request for Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm well placed in the world of offshore finance...

Steve Wynn has just tossed a verbal grenade into the class wars. In a presentation to investors Wednesday night, Wynn — founder of Wynn Resorts — said his company is like a luxury brand that focuses on people with money. He explained that an environment that attracts and caters to the wealthy will attract everyone else. "Rich people only like being around rich people," he said. "Nobody likes being around poor people, especially poor people."

The Panama Papers are not really about a central American state. They are a glimpse through a Panamanian keyhole of an orgy of tax evasion, money laundering and kleptocracy – amid the legitimate financial planning – hosted by the world’s tax havens. Seven years after world leaders came together at a post-financial crisis G20 summit in London and committed to end tax haven abuse, it is clear from these papers that no such end is in sight.

The eight members of China’s Communist party elite whose family members used offshore companies are revealed in the Panama Papers. The documents show the granddaughter of a powerful Chinese leader became the sole shareholder in two British Virgin Islands companies while still a teenager. Jasmine Li had just begun studying at Stanford University in the US when the companies were registered in her name in December 2010. Her grandfather Jia Qinglin was at...

Everything seemed to sparkle at the Mar-a-Lago estate here on a recent afternoon. The sun glinted off the pool and the black Secret Service S.U.V.s in the circular driveway. Palm trees rustled in a warm breeze, croquet balls clicked and a security guard stood at the entrance to Donald J. Trump’s private living quarters. “You can always tell when the king is here,” Mr. Trump’s longtime butler here, Anthony Senecal, said of the master of the house and Republican presidential candidate.

President Robert Mugabe has come under fire for holding a lavish $1 million birthday party to celebrate his 92nd birthday in a drought-stricken town in Zimbabwe. Opponents said the event was "an affront to ordinary Zimbabweans" at a time when more than a quarter of the population are in need of food aid. Mugabe's birthday bashes have become an annual pilgrimage for loyalists but the decision to hold this year's party in Masvingo...

On a crisp Sunday morning in November, Weymi Cho picked me up at my hotel, in downtown Vancouver, in her new car, a white Maserati GranTurismo with a red leather interior. She had slept only two hours the night before. A new karaoke machine had been installed in her apartment, a four-million-dollar condo with a view of the city’s harbor, and she and some friends had spent the night singing and drinking Veuve Clicquot.

The exclusive account of how a small band of federal agents and an outsized corrupt official brought down the sports world's biggest governing body. Chuck Blazer looked out the window of his $18,000-a-month Trump Tower apartment, with its view of New York's Central Park. Most tourists on Fifth Avenue below could only dream of his kind of high-rise life. But after years of lavish excess, he was no longer fixated on the trappings of his success.

This week, the richest business leaders and investors from around the world have gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. In keeping with tradition, a small portion of the agenda will be devoted to global development and the plight of people living at the other end of the global income distribution. Philanthropy is one way of linking the fortunes of these disparate communities.

Less than one per cent of the wealth created since 2000 has gone to the poorest 50 per cent of the world's population, new research has revealed. The finding comes as the world’s richest business leaders and most powerful heads of state gather in Davos for the start of the annual four-day summit. Fifteen years into the millennium, the evidence suggests the world’s rich are only getting richer, while the least well-off half of the world remain in borderline poverty.

Wealth inequality has grown to the stage where 62 of the world’s richest people own as much as the poorest half of humanity combined, according to a new report. The research, conducted by the charity Oxfam, found that the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population – 3.6 billion people – has fallen by 41 per cent, or a trillion US dollars, since 2010. While this group has become poorer, the wealth of the richest 62 people on the planet has increased...

Call it Downton Abbey syndrome: The newest trend among the world' s ultra-rich—like, royalty-grade, private-plane-owning Scrooge McDuck rich—is to have a butler. But what type of person would willingly give over his life to serving the outrageously moneyed? As David Katz discovers, these are men and women with boundless grace, innate propriety, and the wherewithal to quickly hide six hookers on a mega-yacht.

The ins and outs of inheritance are an emotionally wrought and economically ambiguous phenomenon. From morally disagreeing with your benefactor to barely knowing them, from inheriting enough money that you can retire to making just enough to buy a nice suit for a funeral, the lives of inheritors are just as varied as anyone else's. Yet inheritors and trust fund recipients are, at times, treated like the black sheep of the working world and are seen as...

Much of the Internet is giddy over Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s pledge to “give” “99%” of their Facebook stock to “charity.” Bill and Melinda Gates said, “The example you’re setting today is an inspiration to us and the world.” Unfortunately, it’s not a very good example. Since the last gilded age, the super-rich have generally given to charitable organizations or to their own charitable foundations. That’s why we have the University of Chicago...

You’ve got the Lamborghini and the Learjet, the houses and quite possibly the palaces; Erdem designs your dresses and you’ve got heaps of diamonds. What next? Well, adornment can only take you so far: what good is that Lech heli-skiing pad when your knees are shot? What’s the point in building a multibillion-pound business when you’re unwittingly courting a heart attack?

Special suite at LAX will let stars and the world’s wealthy glide directly from their limo to their first-class seat without having to interact with the public. Welcome to the 1%’s new airport terminal. Los Angeles international airport on Thursday won approval to build a special terminal to allow celebrities, sports stars and the world’s wealthy to glide directly from their chauffeur-driven limo to their first-class seat without having to interact with any of the general travelling public.

A Hong Kong billionaire spent a record $48.4m buying an 12.03-carat diamond dubbed “Blue Moon” for his seven-year-old daughter in an auction in Geneva. Property tycoon Joseph Lau bought the rock at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday and immediately renamed it “Blue Moon of Josephine” after his daughter.

Fifteen of the biggest players in the $14 trillion market for credit insurance are also the referees. Firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. wrote the rules, are the dominant buyers and sellers and, ultimately, help decide winners and losers. Has a country such as Argentina paid what it owes? Has a company like Caesars Entertainment Corp. kept up with its bills? When the question comes up, the 15 firms meet on a conference...