You think Wall Street is having some hard times? Look at Russia’s impoverished oligarchs.
RealClearMarkets has taken a look at the annual Russian “rich list” produced by Finans, the Russian business magazine.Oleg Deripaska, who topped Finans’ list for the two previous years, has fallen to eighth place after losing a whopping 85 per cent of his wealth — down to $4.9bn from $40bn, Finans estimated.
“Party boy” Mikhail Prokhorov, the metals and banking billionaire who sold his stake in mining company Norilsk Nickel early last year, moved up from seventh place to top the list with a fortune of $14.1bn – way down from $21.5 billion a year ago, the magazine said.
Meanwhile, Roman Abramovich, owner of England’s Chelsea Football Club and a stake in steelmaker Evraz, stayed in second place. But his fortune, estimated last year at $23bn, has plummeted to $13.9bn.
Other losers include steel magnates Vladimir Lisin, owner of a majority stake in NLMK, and Alexei Mordashov, owner of Severstal. Lisin, who has hung on to third place this year, has seen his fortune plunge by 65 per cent to $7.7bn. Mordashov’s fortune is down 81 per cent to just $4.1bn.
Political connections still obviously help in Russia where, as RealClearMarkets reminds us, stock markets lost 70 per cent of their value last year, while the national currency has lost 35 per cent since the summer.
Aggressive geopolitical rhetoric and worsening corporate governance drove many investors away, while plunging prices for oil and metals underscored the fragility of Russia’s eight-year oil-fuelled boom.
Finans, which publishes its rich list two months before Forbes’ famous global rich list, said the number of billionaires on its list had halved from last year, when there were 101 billionaires featured.
And for the ultimate “then and now” comparison, read this account by the IHT a year ago of Finans 2008 rich list.
Related links:
Russia’s super losers – RealClearMarkets
Finans’ annual rich list (in Russian) – Top.RBC.ru