Moscow becomes world's billionaire capital - Forbes
NEW YORK, March 6 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow now has 74 billionaires with average wealth of $5.9 bln, placing it above New York, Forbes Magazine said in its annual rich list published on Thursday.
According to the list, New York has 71 billionaires, followed by London with 36, Istanbul with 34, and Hong Kong with 30.
Russia is second only to the United States in the number of its super-rich. An additional 35 Russians have crossed the $1 bln mark in the past year, helped along by the continued rise of the ruble against the
dollar.
"Sixteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia, with 87 billionaires, is the new No. 2 country behind the U.S., easily overtaking Germany, with 59 billionaires, which held the honour for six years," said Forbes associate editor Luisa Kroll.
The Unites States accounts for 469 (42%) of the world's billionaires.
Topping the list of Russia's billionaires is Oleg Deripaska with $28 bln, placing him ninth in the world, ahead of the more famous Roman Abramovich with $23.5 bln, in 15th place.
Deripaska's holding company Basic Element owns huge assets in insurance, auto manufacture, and aluminum, while Abramovich, since selling his oil company Sibneft to Russian state-controlled gas giant Gazprom in 2005, has bought up steel and mining assets. He also owns Chelsea Football Club.
Russia's richest woman remains Elena Baturina, the 45-year-old second wife of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, 71. Forbes estimates that she has added $1.1 bln to her personal wealth in the past year, bringing it up to $4.2 bln and putting her in 253rd place globally.
Baturina founded Inteko in 1991, which became Moscow's largest construction firm in the years after her husband became mayor. In late 2006 she sued the Russian edition of Forbes over a cover story.
The world's richest man this year is U.S. investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet, ousting his friend Bill Gates from the top spot, which the Microsoft founder had held for 13 years. The two reportedly play regular games of online bridge together, and Buffet has pledged most of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charity focused on healthcare improvement and poverty
reduction.
Buffet's wealth has shot up to $62 bln with the stock growth of his holding Berkshire Hathaway, while Gates is now worth $58 bln, $2 bln more than last year, putting him in third place. In second place is Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim with an estimated
$60 bln.
Forbes.com March 5, 200 The World's Billionaires [DJ: The Russians.]
Rank Name Citizenship Age Net Worth ($bil) Residence 9 Oleg Deripaska Russia 40 28.0 Russia 15 Roman Abramovich Russia 41 23.5 Russia 18 Alexei Mordashov Russia 42 21.2 Russia 20 Mikhail Fridman Russia 43 20.8 Russia 21 Vladimir Lisin Russia 51 20.3 Russia 24 Mikhail Prokhorov Russia 42 19.5 Russia 25 Vladimir Potanin Russia 47 19.3 Russia 36 Suleiman Kerimov Russia 42 17.5 Russia 54 German Khan Russia 46 13.9 Russia 56 Vagit Alekperov Russia 57 13.0 Russia 59 Dmitry Rybolovlev Russia 41 12.8 Russia 63 Iskander Makhmudov Russia 44 11.9 Russia 65 Alexander Abramov Russia 49 11.5 Russia 67 Viktor Vekselberg Russia 50 11.2 Russia 72 Alexei Kuzmichev Russia 45 10.8 Russia 73 Viktor Rashnikov Russia 59 10.4 Russia 77 Igor Zyuzin Russia 47 10.0 Russia 77 Vladimir Yevtushenkov Russia 59 10.0 Russia 91 Alisher Usmanov Russia 54 9.3 Russia 113 Nikolai Tsvetkov Russia 47 8.0 Russia 149 Leonid Fedun Russia 51 6.4 Russia 149 Boris Ivanishvili Russia 52 6.4 Georgia 149 Sergei Popov Russia 36 6.4 Russia 158 Andrey Melnichenko Russia 36 6.2 Russia 160 Yuri Zhukov Russia 38 6.1 Russia 160 Kirill Pisarev Russia 38 6.1 Russia 164 Dmitry Pumpyansky Russia 44 6.0 Russia 178 Pyotr Aven Russia 53 5.5 Russia 178 Alexander Frolov Russia 43 5.5 Russia 214 Leonid Mikhelson Russia 52 4.7 Russia 253 Elena Baturina Russia 45 4.2 Russia 260 Vasily Anisimov Russia 56 4.0 Russia 260 Mikhail Balakin Russia 46 4.0 Russia 260 Andrei Molchanov Russia 36 4.0 Russia 277 Gleb Fetisov Russia 41 3.9 Russia 307 Roustam Tariko Russia 46 3.5 Russia 334 Andrei Skoch Russia 42 3.3 Russia 358 Filaret Galchev Russia 45 3.1 Russia 358 Alexander Lebedev Russia 48 3.1 Russia 446 Vyacheslav Kantor Russia 54 2.6 Switzerland 446 Mikhail Gutseriev Russia 50 2.6 United Kingdom 446 Vladimir Bogdanov Russia 56 2.6 Russia 462 Gennady Timchenko Russia 55 2.5 Switzerland 524 Alexei Ananyev Russia 43 2.3 Russia 524 Dmitry Ananyev Russia 39 2.3 Russia 524 Shalva Chigirinsky Russia 58 2.3 Russia 605 Danil Khachaturov Russia 36 2.0 Russia 605 Sergei Pugachev Russia 45 2.0 Russia 652 Sergei Galitsky Russia 40 1.9 Russia 652 Yuri Kovalchuk Russia 56 1.9 Russia 652 Igor Altushkin Russia 37 1.9 Russia 677 Anatoly Sedykh Russia 43 1.8 Russia 677 Pyotr Kondrashev Russia 58 1.8 Russia 677 Igor Yakovlev Russia 42 1.8 Russia 707 Alexander Dzhaparidze Russia 52 1.7 Russia 707 Sergei Petrov Russia 53 1.7 Russia 707 Andrei Kosogov Russia 47 1.7 Russia 743 Andrei Kozitsyn Russia 47 1.6 Russia 785 Andrei Rogachev Russia 44 1.5 Russia 785 Alexander Svetakov Russia 40 1.5 Russia 785 Oleg Boyko Russia 43 1.5 Russia 785 Lev Kvetnoi Russia 42 1.5 Russia 785 Sergei Sarkisov Russia 48 1.5 Russia 785 Nikolai Sarkisov Russia 39 1.5 Russia 843 Vladimir Iorikh Russia 49 1.4 Russia 843 Maxim Blazhko Russia 39 1.4 Russia 843 Farkhad Akhmedov Russia 52 1.4 Russia 843 Dmitry Zelenov Russia 35 1.4 Russia 843 Sergei Veremeenko Russia 56 1.4 Russia 843 Alexander Skorobogatko Russia 40 1.4 Russia 843 Alexander Ponomarenko Russia 43 1.4 Russia 897 Ruben Vardanian Russia 39 1.3 Russia 897 David Davidovich Russia 45 1.3 Russia 897 Boris Berezovsky Russia 62 1.3 United Kingdom 897 Andrei Komarov Russia 41 1.3 Russia 962 Alexander Mamut Russia 47 1.2 Russia 962 Igor Kesaev Russia 41 1.2 Russia 962 Sergei Polonsky Russia 35 1.2 Russia 962 Aras Agalarov Russia 52 1.2 Russia 1014 Viktor Kharitonin Russia 35 1.1 Russia 1014 Gavril Yushvaev Russia 50 1.1 Russia 1014 Megdet Rahimkulov & family Russia 62 1.1 Hungary 1062 Sergei Generalov Russia 44 1.0 Russia 1062 Vadim Moshkovich Russia 40 1.0 Russia 1062 Vitaly Malkin Russia 55 1.0 Russia 1062 Igor Kim Russia 42 1.0 Russia 1062 Georgy Krasnyansky Russia 52 1.0 Russia
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Forbes March 24, 2008 Justice, Russian Style Philadelphia lawyer Bruce Marks makes a business suing oligarchs on behalf of other oligarchs. Getting a money verdict seems almost beside the point. By Nathan Vardi
From his cramped Philadelphia office Bruce Marks is girding for his next battle in eastern Europe. "People over there have achieved wealth and power through illegal means consisting of corruption, commercial theft and money laundering," he pontificates, gesturing out a window lined with empty vodka bottles and other souvenirs of his scrapes with oligarchs. "I represent people who have been harmed by this type of conduct."
Perhaps the lawyer doth protest too much. Many of the people Marks represents in these cases have sketchy résumés themselves. Among them: Mikhail Zhivilo, a Russian fugitive accused of attempting to kill a Siberian governor, and Alexander Rotzang, an oil baron living in Canada who has an outstanding arrest warrant in Russia for embezzlement. (Marks says both criminal charges were trumped up by his clients' enemies and corrupt Russian prosecutors.) There's the curious fact that in the ten years of his crusade, Marks, 50, has never won a single verdict or a judgment against a billionaire defendant. He often loses critical motions against them. Still, he serves an important function for his clients: He gives them a court-protected forum for flinging dirt at their enemies--providing a form of justice that more closely resembles Gilbert & Sullivan than Sullivan & Cromwell.
Because he charges $600 an hour and rarely works on contingency, Marks can afford to let these cases drag on and on. (Not surprisingly, he insists that the lawsuits are not just for show and that he never abuses the U.S. court system.) His suit against billionaire oilmen Leonard Blavatnik and Victor Vekselberg has been in and out of courts for six years. It accuses them, along with Lord John Brown (BP's former chairman), of stealing a Russian oil company from Alex Rotzang, who is seeking at least $1.5 billion in damages. Along the way Marks accuses Blavatnik and Vekselberg of racketeering, fraud and all manner of illegality. (Their lawyers deny the charges.) As happens with most of Marks' cases, a U.S. court decreed that it was an inappropriate (in Latin, non conveniens) forum for hearing a dispute about events that took place in Russia. The case was reinstated on appeal--and then dismissed again in September 2007 by a judge who said it simply didn't belong in New York because "the conduct alleged to have taken place in the United States was preparatory or peripheral to the alleged scheme." Marks filed yet another appeal in January.
Marks has twice gone after Oleg Deripaska, head of one of the world's largest aluminum producers and Russia's richest man (net worth: $28 billion), on behalf of business rivals Mikhail Zhivilo, Jalol Kaidarov and Joseph Traum. They claimed that Deripaska used connections to the Izmailovo mafia to take ownership of an aluminum smelter and an ore treatment plant. (Deripaska called the charges "false and malicious.") The first of two suits was thrown out of federal court. In the wake of those suits Uncle Sam has revoked Deripaska's U.S. entry visa--a move for which Marks claims credit, after talking with the Justice Department's organized-crime and racketeering section. (Department officials decline comment.)
"These cases do not belong here," says Martin Auerbach, who defended Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who controls a giant steel pipe company, against a suit Marks filed in federal court in Boston. Marks sued Pinchuk in 2006 on behalf of companies controlled by Ihor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian billionaire banker who claimed Pinchuk had seized control of a metalmaking plant in which Kolomoisky was an investor and looted it of hundreds of millions of dollars. Auerbach says Pinchuk did nothing wrong. In what one could argue was a success for Marks, the case was settled when the enemies made peace; they now jointly control the operation.
Russia will long remain fertile hunting ground for Marks and his ilk. Today it is home to 87 billionaires--a total second only to that of the U.S. Marks, who has a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, has already sued 8 of them, along with companies controlled by 4 others. His favorite tactic is leaning on the federal Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organization act. rico allows Marks to make broad and vague accusations--and to hold out for triple damages. Nice try. So far no U.S. judge has ruled that Marks' Russian clients have a legitimate rico claim.
Why not throw in the towel? Marks clearly enjoys needling the rich and powerful. "The people I've sued might not like me," he says. "But there is a resonance among Russians in general that a lot of these people really are crooks." Thanks to the generous protection of U.S. libel laws, such derogatory statements--or any assertions made in civil pleadings--are, within limits, privileged reporting.
Mataiotes mataioteton, eipen ho Ekklasiastes, mataiotes mataioteton, ta panta mataiotes.
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