A Craze for Counting Billionaires

Forbes magazine has tracked billionaires in Ukraine for the first time. In the just-published list of the world’s billionaires, Ukraine is represented by three people. According to this authoritative American journal, the honor of being Ukraine’s first and the world’s 258th billionaire belongs to Rinat Akhmetov, owner of System Capital Management and a string of other large industrial enterprises in the Donetsk region. Forbes estimates his fortune at $2.4 billion. Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma’s son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk, who owns the Nikopol- based ferroalloys mill, ranks 507th with an income of $1.3 billion. Serhiy Taruta, chairman of the board of directors of the Industrial Union of Donbas, incorporating about 40 steel mills, is in 620th place with $1 billion. According to Louise Kroll, one of the compilers of the Forbes list, Ukraine drew attention owing to a steep rise in the price of raw materials and political events in this country. Ms. Kroll also admitted that it was difficult to assess the wealth of Ukrainian businessmen, and not just because of the secretive behavior of the oligarchs.

Forbes found a total of 691 billionaires in the world whose aggregate fortune comes to $2.2 trillion. The US has the largest number of billionaires, while the Russians now rank second: the total fortune of Russian billionaires is an estimated $90.6 billion, the BBC reports. At the moment, Roman Abramovich, the main owner of Sibneft, with an income of $13.3 billion, is currently Russia’s No. 1 billionaire. Forbes claims that Mikhail Khodorkovsky has “only” $2.2 billion out of the $15.2 billion that brought him to the top of last year’s national list of fat cats.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, topped the international list of billionaires for the 11th consecutive year with $46.5 billion. Hot on his heels is “investment guru” Warren Buffet ($44 billion). The Indian-born British businessman Lakshmi Mittal, who last October merged three companies into the world’s largest metallurgical empire Mittal Steel, made a fantastic jump to third place, with his wealth rising by $18.8 billion to $25 billion.