Forbes’s billionaires list and the growth of inequality in Russia

The wealth of the planet’s richest people grows with unprecedented speed. In 2005, the number of billionaires reached 793, having risen by 102, and their net worth exceeded $2.6 trillion, having risen by 18 percent. The average wealth of a member of the list is $3.3 billion.

The indicators of the “Russian part” of the list, which grew by six people since the previous year, correspond exactly to this general tendency, and sometimes even exceed it. The net worth of the Russian nouveax riches nearly doubled in the course of a year, from $91 billion to $172 billion. Twelve of them figure in the world’s top 100. In the lead is Roman Abramovich, the governor of Chukotka and owner of the British soccer team Chelsea. His wealth grew—especially because of the sale of the company Sibneft—by nearly $5 billion, and is estimated at $18.2 billion. He rose from 21st to 11th place in the world list.

After him follows the head of Lukoil Vagit Alekperov, the former deputy minister of the USSR’s state-run oil industry, whose wealth more than doubled to $11 billion. Next are Vladimir Lisin, the head of the Novolipetsk Steel; Viktor Vekselberg, buyer of Faberge eggs and pretender to the governorship of Kamchatka, director of the Siberia-Ural Aluminum Company SUAL and the oil company TNK-BP; Alfa Group Consortium head Mikhail Fridman; and other well- and not-so-well-known “heroes.”

As noted in an editorial in the newspaper Gazeta, the majority of the new members of the “Russian list” had to make information about their income public, including from their companies’ initial public offerings (IPOs). As a result, it turned out that the wealth of the Evraz Group vice-president Aleksandr Frolov constitutes $2.3 billion, while that of the Novatek general manager Leonid Mikhelson is $2.5 billion.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/russ-a03.shtml