Oleg Deripaska is the richest Russian with a fortune of over 28 billion dollars
Forbes reports: Moscow has overtaken New York City as home to the most billionaires, according to Forbes magazine, with 74 of the super-rich elite now counting the Russian capital as their home. By contrast, 71 billionaires live in New York, according to the magazine's annual list, which placed London in third place with 36.
"Russia is again the dominant story in (Europe) this year. Its billionaires are just fast and fearsome. What's fascinating is that every single one of them is self made," said Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll. "We're not going to get into exactly how they got it but none of them inherited it and their average age is 46," she added.
Russia now counts a total of 87 billionaires, ousting Germany in second place but still trailing the first-placed United States, which has 469. Russian oligarchs have made seen their fortunes rise in recent years thanks to booming commodity prices. Among the top-placed Russian figures were aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, valued at 28 billion dollars and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, said to be worth 23.5 billion dollars.
Click here to read the rest of the Forbes billionaires list articles at Forbes.com.
Comments
Thats funny considering, about 4 years ago I remember a poll run by Forbes where they asked "Which country will have the highest number of new billionaires in next ten years?"
So far it seems I may have voted for the right one!
(At the time I think the results were leaning towards India and China)
Posted by: Alex | March 8, 2008 4:34 AM
Warreb Buffett and Bill Gates are still the two richest men in the world, let's not forget, and with a few self-made Indian billionaires closing in. Those Russians got rich because of the privitizations of formerly state-owned businesses. If China does the same thing now, there will be more than 100 oligarchs on this list, I bet.
Posted by: Johnny Yinn | March 10, 2008 2:52 PM
I am not surprised by the number of Russians on the list. I think Russia will be fine as long as the president is a strong leader who considers maintaining law and order as the top priority.
Posted by: Bill Kanterman | March 11, 2008 5:37 PM
Demergers and not mergers are the key to financial success for Indian entrepreneurs and companies. The PSU's which are extremely inefficient and wasteful need to be cut to size. Russian style shock therapy (economic) is bound to yield results.
Posted by: Vikramaditya Mathur | March 27, 2008 5:55 AM