Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Moscow: new world capital for billionaires

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080306001953.xvguehx7

Moscow: new world capital for billionaires
Mar 5, 2008

Moscow has overtaken New York City as home to the most billionaires, according to Forbes magazine, with 74 of the super-rich elite now counting the Russian capital as their home.

By contrast, 71 billionaires live in New York, according to the magazine's annual list, which placed London in third place with 36.

"Russia is again the dominant story in (Europe) this year. Its billionaires are just fast and fearsome. What's fascinating is that every single one of them is self made," said Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll.

"We're not going to get into exactly how they got it but none of them inherited it and their average age is 46," she added.

Russia now counts a total of 87 billionaires, ousting Germany in second place but still trailing the first-placed United States, which has 469.

Russian oligarchs have made seen their fortunes rise in recent years thanks to booming commodity prices.

Among the top-placed Russian figures were aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, valued at 28 billion dollars and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, said to be worth 23.5 billion dollars.

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