The cumulative fortunes acquired by the top Russian businessmen in the oil and metal market expansion are estimated at 90 billion dollars.

The hierarchy of Russia’s wealthy entrepreneurs has changed somewhat since the previous year. Roman Abramovich, the principal owner of Sibneft, with net worth of 13 billion dollars has now become the richest man in Russia. Mikhail Kho-dorkovsky, who possessed 15 billion dollars only a year ago, was reduced in rank and relegated from the top of the Forbes list to almost its end. Khodorkovsky’s current wealth is around $ 2 billion. This January, Khodorkovsky transferred 59.5 % of his stock of Group Menatep, a conglomerate which owns 61 % of the YUKOS company, to his former partner Leonid Nevzlin. Such a considerable loss notwithstanding, in the view of the editor-in-chief of Russia’s Forbes magazine Maksim Kashulinskiy, Mikhail Khodorkovsky still qualifies for a place on the list of the richest Russians.

The number of Russian billionaires has declined since 2004. The April 2004 edition of Forbes featured 36 Russians in its most-wealthy list. Five of those excluded were co-owners of Group Menatep – YUKOS’s capital assets have fallen from $ 32 billion in 2004 to $ 1.8 billion in February 2005. The president of Alfa-bank Petr Aven, whose value a year ago was $ 2.2 billion, was also not mentioned by Forbes this year. Neither were the two former co-owners of Gazprom, Rem Vyahirev and Vyacheslav Sheremet. Of the Sibneft managers featured last year, only Evgeniy Shvidler, an American citizen, remains on the list.   

In spite of the general declining trend, several new prosperous Russian businessmen were ad-ded to the 2005 list. Boris Ivanishvili, whose possessions are valued at USD 2 billion, has recently sold his metallurgical business and converted his wealth into liquid assets. Another first-timer for the Forbes list, Vladimir Iorih, has become a partner to Igor Zuzin in his steel venture Group Metchel just last fall. Steel magnate Alisher Yusmanov, whose wealth secured him a place on the list this year, stated that he was quite pleased to be included: “Any serious businessman would want that. It is a recognition of one’s accomplishment.” Aleksandr Lebedev, the fourth addition to the listings, was similarly satisfied.

What is particularly unusual about the 2005 Forbes list is that it, for the first time in history, contained billionaires from former USSR republics other than Russia. The Forbes magazine determined that six businessmen from Ukraine and Kazakhstan (three from each country) were worth more than a billion dollars. Rinat Ahmetov with his $ 2.4 billion controls the company System Capital Management, which runs a number of industrial complexes in Ukraine. The son-in-law of former Ukraine’s President Kuchma, Victor Pinchuk, manages the Niko-polskiy factory that produces 11.5 % of world’s ferrous alloys. Sergey Taruta with a fortune of $ 1 billion is the chairman of the board of directors of the Industrial Union of Donbass corporation, which controls over 40 metallurgical plants.

The three billionaires from Kazakhstan are also in the natural resource business.