Forbes magazine has compiled its latest list of Russia’s 200 richest entrepreneurs, 102 of whom were billionaires at the end of 2019.
The aggregate fortune of the 200 richest Russian businessmen dropped by $40 billion last year to $456 billion, according to the rating.
The owner and CEO of metals and mining giant Nornickel, Vladimir Potanin, remained on the top of the list of richest Russian businessmen, with a fortune estimated at $19.7 billion. He is followed by the chairman and main shareholder of NLMK Group Vladimir Lisin ($18.1 billion), and the head of energy firm Novatek, Leonid Mikhelson ($17.1 billion).
This is largely due to turbulence in the financial markets at the beginning of 2020 due to crashing oil prices and the coronavirus epidemic. In addition, the threshold for entering the rating has decreased, which has not happened since 2016. This year, to get on the Russian Forbes list, it was enough to have a fortune of $400 million, and last year an “entrance ticket” to the list cost $500 million.
Among the newcomers to the rating are the billionaire brothers Dmitry and Igor Bukhman, the creators of the game developer Playrix (we wrote about them in detail here), who entered the list straight at 34th and 35th places with a combined fortune of $3.1 billion.
The list also includes the creator of one of the largest dating services in the world, Dating.com Dmitry Volkov ($750 million, in 126th place), as well as the president of Delo Group Sergey Shishkarev, who completed one of the largest deals last year in buying 50% of the country’s largest container operator Transcontainer for $944 million.
