14.03.09

Twelve months of the global crisis cost the wealthiest people alive $2 trillion. Sum total of their fortunes is down to $2.4 trillion. There are 793 billionaires in the world nowadays, 332 less than the year before.

Last time billionaires were in so serious a trouble in 2003 when their list went down to 476 names. Fortunately for them, economic boom followed then and fortunes began growing all over again. In 2005, the Russians were the third largest ethnic group on the list of billionaires (27 people) after the Americans and Germans. The Forbes came up with 87 Russian billionaires in early March 2008 and 110 barely a month later.

The crisis did away with lots of Russian fortunes. Considering Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Gutseriyev living abroad, Russian billionaires number 32 now. They cost $471.4 billion before the crisis. These days, they cost only $102.1 billion. Moscow used to be the city of billionaires in 2008 (74 billionaires lived in Moscow, 71 in New York, and 36 in London). It is different now: 55 billionaires live in New York, 28 in London, and 27 in Moscow.

The crisis was particularly hard on Oleg Deripaska, the business tycoon who cost $28 billion and was the 9th wealthiest man in the world in 2008. In fact, Deripaska was the wealthiest Russian alive then after increasing his fortune by $14.7 billion the previous year and thus beating Roman Abramovich. These days, The Forbes evaluates Deripaska's fortune at $3.5 billion (-88%) and places him in the 164th slot. ("That's the cost of his assets minus debts," Russian Forbes Editor Maxim Kashulinsky explained.)

The current Russian list of billionaires is topped by Mikhail Prokhorov.

Prokhorov sold his 50% interest in KM Invest to Vladimir Potanin and 25% in Norilsk Nickel to UC Rusal. Sources close to Prokhorov say that these two deals made him approximately $9 billion wealthier. Moreover, UC Rusal still owes $2.8 billion to Prokhorov.

Abramovich with his $8.5 billion remains the second wealthiest Russian.

Sources close to Alpha-Group shareholders imply that the fortunes of Mikhail Fridman, Herman Khan, and Aleksei Kuzmichev are somewhat larger than what The Forbes gives them credit for.

The latest list of billionaires includes no developers. There were nine of them on the list a year ago. PIK Group owners Yuri Zhukov and Kirill Pisarev were thought to cost $6.1 billion each (more than any other developer). Neither does the list include Yelena Baturina anymore. Inteco owner and the wife of the mayor of Moscow, Baturina was the only Russian woman on the last year list with the fortune estimated at $4.2 billion. Financiers – the Sarkisovs (RESO-Guarantee owners) and Ruben Vardanjan (Troika founder) - are out of the list too. Nikolai Tsvetkov (Uralsib, $1.8 billion) and Rustam Tariko (Russian Standard, $1.1 billion) did make the list.

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Source: Vedomosti