Russia's richest get thinner

The Russians have a saying for everything. A good one these days is: “The fat man gets thinner; the thin man dies.”

In these times of crisis, it’s hard to feel bad for oligarchs who have had their wealth shrunk by the billions, while remaining with multibillion-dollar fortunes to come back to.

But in glamour-obsessed Moscow, reading the Forbes list is a yearly rite of passage to understanding how the country is doing.

Last year, 87 Russians made the Forbes billionaire list, and with 71 of them living in Moscow that made the Russian capital the most billionaire-rich city on the planet.

Things look very different this year, with (just?) 32 Russians making the tally, and Moscow dropping to third place behind New York and London. Their combined wealth fell a total of $471.4 billion. Ouch.

There are some very high-profile names.

Elena Baturina, wife of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and a construction magnate, was the only Russian woman to ever appear on the list, her fortune last year estimated at $4.2 billion. She’s nowhere to be found this year, and has just asked the state for a $1.4 billion loan guarantee. Forbes says her fortune has dropped by at least $3.3 billion.

Then there’s Alexander Lebedev, the smooth talking silver-haired former KGB spy and current Duma deputy who has just announced he plans to run for mayor of Sochi, which will host the next Winter Olympics. Lebedev lost much of his $3.1 billion fortune (perhaps contributing to hid decision to pay just £1 for London’s Evening Standard newspaper earlier this year?), with holdings mainly in banks and airlines, as well as media (he owns 49% of opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta). Forbes puts his loss at $2.5 billion.

Ruben Vardanian, the affable owner of Russia’s second largest investment bank, Troika Dialog, didn’t have all that much to start out with ($1.3 billion), but is now down to just 200 million, according to Forbes. Troika spent months denying widespread rumours that it was on the verge of collapse, and finally sold 33 percent to South Africa’s Standard Bank earlier this month.

Some of the worst affected, predictably, were Russia’s real estate developers. Among the highest-profile is Sergei Polonsky, the tall, young owner of Mirax Group, who Forbes estimates has lost $900 million (of a $1.2 billion estimated fortune). As the crisis hit, Polonsky sent a letter encouraging journalists to refrain from fanning panic by reporting on it. Looks like that didn’t work too well for him.

Also gone is Roustam Tariko, the head of Russian Standard – both the bank and the vodka. He was the subject of a profile in Vanity Fair last year; wonder what it would look like now.

The list goes on and on. And on and on …

http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/russia-and-its-neighbors/090316/russias-richest-get-thinner