According to Finans, Onexim Group owner Mikhail Prokhorov is now the richest Russian businessman with $14.1bln, making him the fourth Russian to achieve this fame since 2003, when ex-Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky headed the first rating of Russian billionaires.
The pragmatic Prokhorov, who was only sixth in last year’s rating, successfully cashed out from problematic investment projects before the arrival of the crisis. This far-sighted approach has enabled him to retain most of his wealth intact, unlike other oligarchs, including BasEl owner Oleg Deripaska and Millhouse Capital and Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, the holders of the first and second positions last year.
These other previously deep-pocketed Russian business titans, who had borrowed heavily to expand their business empires during the economic boom, had miscalculated in their investment strategies, which later led to huge losses in their wealth and sales of their most liquid assets at give-away prices to remain solvent. These negative events have consequently more than halved the number of dollar-denominated billionaires in the country to 49, down from 101 in the country last year.
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