Steel magnate Vladimir Lisin is Russia’s new richest man after a year that saw all the top oligarchs in the country increase their fortunes despite the financial crisis, a report said yesterday.
Lisin, the owner of leading steel producer Novolipetsk Steel, saw his fortune rise to US$18.8 billion from US$7.7 billion last year, according to this year’s rich list of the Russian magazine Finans.
The increase of his wealth on the back of a strong year for the company’s share price knocked off last year’s leader — the billionaire owner of the Onexim investment fund Mikhail Prokhorov — from his perch.
Prokhorov’s fortune amounted to US$17.85 billion, compared with US$14.1 billion last year, putting him into second place, Finans said.
Third place was occupied by the owner of Chelsea soccer club, Roman Abramovich, who boasted a fortune of US$17 billion compared with US$13.9 billion last year.
Oleg Deripaska, majority shareholder in steel maker UC Rusal and the oligarch who took the hardest hit from the crisis, also saw a recovery in his fortune to US$13.8 billion.
This put Deripaska, who in 2008 was Russia’s richest man with a colossal fortune of US$40 billion according to Finans, in sixth place this year, the magazine said.
Russia’s richest men — many of whom made their fortunes in the chaotic privatizations of the 1990s and then accrued major political influence — were hit hard by the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.
But with all the top players increasing their fortunes in this year’s list, the Finans list showed Russia’s oligarchs making something of a comeback.
Lisin is less prominent than some of his predecessors as Russia’s richest man and Finans described him “as the least expected pretender [to the title of richest man] in the history of the publication of the rich list.”
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