Oligarch Oleg Deripaska rated Russia's richest man, leaves Abramovich behind

The owner of Basic Element holding, Oleg Deripaska, has seized the title of Russia’s richest man from Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich who previously topped the list during the recent several years, Finance magazine reports. On Monday, the magazine published its new rating of Russia’s richest people that reveals some radical changes caused by the fact that business is now more transparent.

Photo: Oligarch Oleg Deripaska rated Russia's richest man, leaves Abramovich behind

The aggregate capital value of the rating persons makes up $425.1 billion that is about 1.5 times higher than that registered over the previous year.

A serious advance is obvious among Russia’s top ten  dollar billionaires. Finance states that some people may find it strange that Deripaska is the leader of the rating this year. However, when one studies the assets and development strategies of Basic Element it will be clear that his leadership is indisputable. According to the magazine, Abramovich, who was a longstanding partner of Deripaska in Russian Aluminum (RusAl) is rated Russia’s second richest man with the fortune of $21 billion in the rating of 500 businessmen having fortunes of over 2.4 billion rubles each.

Ex-partners in Interros Mikhail Prokhorov ($14.2 billion) and Vladimir Potanin ($14.2 billion) are holding the 3^rd and the 4^th positions respectively thanks to the quick upturn of Norilsk Nickel and Polus Zoloto quotations. Last year, they occupied the 8^th and the 9^th positions in the end of the top ten richest people.

Finance adds that co-owner of the AFK Sistema Vladimir Yevtushenkov with the fortune of $8 billion is outside the top ten and holds the 13^th position in the rating. Nafta-Moskva owner Suleiman Kerimov has taken Yevtushenkov’s place, the 8^th position in the rating with $12.1 billion. The latter’s fortune increased thanks to the rise in the cost of Gazprom and Sberbank stocks.

The edition highlights the progress of Alfa-group beneficiaries as the holding has unveiled the secrecy of the joint stock structure. So, a new scheme was applied to Mikhail Fridman (the 6^th position with $13.85 billion), German Khan (the 12^th position with $8.5 billion) and Alexey Kuzmichev (the 15^th position with $6.97 billion) and their minor partners in estimation of their fortunes.

According to Finance, the number of dollar billionaires has increased from 50 to 61 people over 2006 in Russia. The increase was basically done by businessmen dealing with retail trade and finance. However, the lion’s share of the total capital ($339.6 billion or 80 percent) falls on the first hundred of the rating members.

The number of Russia’s dollar billionaires who once started their business from nothing has increased from three to ten people, Finance reports. They are Rustam Tariko (the 45^th position with $4.3 billion), Promsvyazkapital co-owners Alexey and Pavel Ananyev (the 28^th and 29^th positions respectively with $3.6 billion each), shareholders of the X5 Retail group Andrey Rogachev (the 41^st position with $1.76 billion) and Alexey Girda (the 46^th position with $1.48 billion) and others.

Based on Russian news media reports

Translated by Maria Gousseva
Pravda.ru