The rating of Russian billionaires for 2007, prepared by the authoritative magazine Finance, suffered radical changes compared to similar research over the last three years. First of all, the list now has a new leader: Oleg Deripaska. In 2004, 2005 and 2006 it was Roman Abramovich who was in the top spot. Experts believe the crucial factor was Deripaska’s holding Basic Element.

Movements both up and down can be seen in the whole first ten billionaires. Thanks to the material increase in quotations of metallurgy companies Norilsky Nickel and Polus Zoloto by Interros, Mikhail Prohorov and Vladimir Potanin are in the third and fourth places, respectively. A year ago they were eighth and ninth. And one cannot help but pay attention to the only billionaire woman, Elena Baturina (worth $6 billion dollars). Now in 17th place, she moved 12 spots up within a year because of the growth of the Russian securities market.

The number of Russian billionaires increased for 2007 from 50 to 61 people. In many ways such growth has been provided by businessmen working in the consumer sector (retail sales and finance). Billionaires control about three-fourths of the aggregate capital of business people included in the rating of Russian billionaires.

The magazine’s list includes, altogether, 500 businesspeople. The aggregate amount of the capital of all people in the list amounts to $425.1 billion, which exceeds the similar figure for last year by almost 1.5 times, though there were 720 persons on the list a year ago. But the largest part of the aggregate capital ($339.6 billion, or 80 percent) rests with the first 100 on the list.

The rating also contains some other interesting details. For example, it’s worth noticing that co-owner of AFK SISTEMA Vladimir Evtushenkov, representing the rapidly developing segment of the non-raw-materials sector of the Russian economy, lost his place in the first 10 in the rating this year. The person who replaced him was the owner of the company Nafta-Moskva Suleyman Kerimov, and the authors of the ratings credit the increase in his estate to the increase in the value of his portfolio, including stakes in Gazprom and Sberbank.

Because of the list one can separately regard the beneficiaries of this alpha group. It has half-opened the veil of secrecy concerning the structure of share capital, which gives more information to evaluate people like Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Alexey Kuzmichev and their partners.

The important tendency undoubtedly has been the increase of the number of billionaires who have businesses or significant stakes in them. Among them are such persons as the owner of the bank Russky Standard Rustam Tariko; co-owners of the Promsvyaz Capital group Alexey and Dmitry Ananyevs; shareholders of X5 Retail Group Andrey Rogachev and Alexander Girda; co-owner of the trading network Magnit Sergey Gapitsky; shareholder of the Rosgosstrah company Danil Khachaturov; co-owner of Rusagro Vadim Moshkovich; owner of the Eldorado trading network Igor Yakovlev; and shareholder of the oil company Sibir Energy Igor Kesaev. These businessmen may not have a place in the first 10 for the time being, but the rapid growth of capitalization of their assets allows us to forecast their progress in the 2008 rating.

We should note that during the preparation of the ratings the authors used the data from the companies, the Central Bank, the Federal Financial Markets Service, the analytical reports of leading investment companies and banks, and the anonymous expert evaluations of billionaires and observers. Evaluations disclosed to the public had priority in the analysis.

Those who made the list were selected by means of the analysis of the market position of companies. Then their estates were evaluated. Their amount of capital is comprised of the value of enterprises in which the businessperson holds shares, lands, real property and other income, including money made from the sale of businesses, and from dividends and salary. The capitalization of publicly listed companies was calculated January 15, 2007.

By Igor Lvov