A publicity-shy steel magnate has emerged as Russia's new richest man, after a year which saw all its top oligarchs defy the financial crisis and increase their fortunes, a report said Monday. Vladimir Lisin, the low-profile owner of leading steel producer Novolipetsk Steel, saw his fortune rise to 18.8 billion dollars from 7.7 billion in 2009, according to the 2010 rich list of the Russian magazine Finans.
The increase of his wealth on the back of a strong year for the company's share price knocked off last year's leader - the billionaire owner of the Onexim investment fund Mikhail Prokhorov - from his perch. Prokhorov's fortune amounted to 17.85 billion dollars, compared with 14.1 billion dollars last year, putting him into second place, Finans said. Third place was occupied by the owner of Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich, who boasted a fortune of 17.0 billion dollars compared with 13.9 billion dollars last year.
Oleg Deripaska, majority shareholder in steel maker UC Rusal and the oligarch who took the hardest hit from the crisis, also saw a recovery in his fortune to 13.8 billion dollars. This put Deripaska, who in 2008 was Russia's richest man with a colossal fortune of 40 billion dollars according to Finans, in sixth place in 2010, the magazine said.
"The thaw on the financial markets has thrown the cash billionaires from their pedestal," the magazine said, referring to those like Prokhorov who had got through the worst of the crisis by converting shares into liquid assets. Russia's richest men - many of whom made their fortunes in the chaotic privatisation of the 1990s and then accrued major political influence - were hit hard by the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. They also now keep a careful distance from politics, especially after the jailing of former richest man and oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky in what his supporters say was punishment for daring to criticise the Kremlin.