Russian Billionaires unhappy with Forbes list

Businessmen who made the Forbes list of Russia’s 100 richest people are not at all happy that the magazine decided to publish their names and to disclose the size of their personal fortunes. They say that it is now unfashionable and even dangerous to be a “public billionaire”.

The moneybags are upset both by the methodology that was used by Forbes, as many believe that their fortunes have been overestimated and by the possible consequences of appearing on the list which is headed by the jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The Vedomosti business daily talked to several of those whose names appeared on the list on conditions of anonymity. “They [the magazine] couldn’t find a worse time and place… Personally the only reaction that I get from discussing personal wealth in our country is a high blood pressure,” said one of the newspaper’s sources. Another billionaire lamented that “appearing on such a list is bound to make the entrepreneur a prime target for the law enforcement authorities”.

The anxiety expressed by Russia’s businessmen is by no means groundless as there have already been precedents set abroad. In the spring of 2003 when Forbes published a list of the 100 richest people in China some of them were later arrested.

The “Golden hundred” of Russia according to Forbes consists of 36 billionaires, the personal fortunes of the remaining 64 businessmen who made the list amount to hundreds of millions of US dollars each. It should be noted that when on 27 February the U.S. edition of Forbes published a list of the world’s richest people, it included only 25 Russian businessmen. This means that “according to Forbes” over the last two and a half months the number of billionaires in Russia grew by 40 percent and the size of their combined fortunes increased from $79.4 billion to $110 billion.

Among the newcomers to the list are the president of Alfa Bank Petr Aven, head of Millhouse Capital David Davidovich, top manager of Sibneft Andrei Gorodilov, Russian senator Valery Oif, whose wealth is also attributed to Sibneft, the wife of the Moscow mayor, Elena Baturina, and member of the Russian parliament Alexander Lebedev who also serves as the president of the National Reserve Bank.

Among the businessmen who were most upset by the publication of the ratings were the billionaires who made their fortunes at the Sibneft oil company. Roman Abramovich, David Davidovich, Andrei Gorodilov and Valery Oif were positively furious, writes Vedomosti. The newspaper quotes the head of Sibneft’s public relations department Alexei Firsov who said: “The rating has no connection with reality, the numbers are wildly speculative, the methodology used by the magazine is clouded in darkness.”

Leonid Fedun, vice president of Russia’s largest oil company Lukoil, whose wealth is estimated by Forbes to equal $1.7 billion, and sources close to the former head of the Gazprom natural gas monopoly Rem Vyakhirev, whose fortune according to the magazine is worth $2.4 billion, say that in reality their personal wealth is much less than Forbes asserts.

The only person who claims that his personal fortune has been underestimated is the exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky. According to the magazine’s calculations today he owns $620 million. But, speaking to Vedomosti Berezovsky said: “In the middle of 1990 Forbes estimated my wealth at $3 billion. This means that either I spent $2.5 billion or their current estimates are incorrect.”