Twelve immigrants from the USSR were on the list of the richest people in Switzerland December 3rd, 2013
The richest people in Switzerland, ranked annually by the economic magazine Bilan, are still not poor. Among the 300 millionaires and billionaires included in the list, this time there were twelve people from the former USSR.
Three days ago, the traditional annual issue of the Swiss economic magazine “Bilan” was published, dedicated to assessing the well-being of the richest people in Switzerland - a kind of barometer of the prosperity of the small Alpine country.
Let me remind you that the conditions for attracting the attention of the economic magazine “Bilan” and getting into the list of the 300 richest people in Switzerland are simple. " You must have a net worth of at least 100 million francs and be Swiss or permanently reside in the country (!!!. Author)" .
So, immigrants from Russia and the countries of the former USSR who are on the list of the 300 richest people in Switzerland:
Vekselberg
1 place. Victor Vekselberg (according to the migration service, a resident of the canton of Zug) - a constant participant in the Bilan rating and our list, again found himself in the top ten (7th place in the overall rating). True, this time his fortune is estimated at 12-13 billion francs, which is approximately 2 billion less than last year.
According to an economic magazine, the 56-year-old businessman's Swiss investments are finally starting to bring satisfaction to their owner. This is especially true for the Swiss group OC Oerlikon, active in the market of polymers, mechanical engineering and equipment for solar panels, which was not in the best shape three years ago. Since then, its market value has only increased, and now 48% of its shares represent the largest investment in the billionaire's portfolio.Second in importance after OC Oerlikon is a stake (100% participation) in the Russian energy company IES-Holding, the largest non-public company in Russia by revenue in 2009, according to Forbes. Participation in other companies, in particular in the Russian-American joint venture Renova, has “great potential,” as the Russian investor, President of the Skolkovo innovation center, likes to say.
Timchenko
2nd place. For Geneva resident Gennady Timchenko 2013 was a good year - not only because his fortune increased by one billion. His contribution to joint French-Russian projects was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.
The 61-year-old businessman of Russian origin with a Finnish passport, who has been living in Geneva for 12 years, founded the oil trading company Gunvor together with the Swede Torbjorn Tornqvist. Each partner owns 44% of the company's shares, the remaining 12% is distributed among employees.
A big fan of hockey (Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kontinental Hockey League) and tennis, in recent years he has significantly expanded his scope of activity, taking part in companies active in the construction sector, petrochemicals, hospitality, aviation, insurance and food production.The Volga Group, an investment group registered in Luxembourg, owned by Gennady Timchenko, is increasing its activities in the Russian market. Forbes magazine estimates the billionaire's wealth at 13 billion francs, and the more conservative Bilan “awarded” him 9-10 billion francs. In the Bilan list, Gennady Timchenko is in 10th place.
Anisimov
3rd place in the Russian-speaking part of the ranking of Swiss billionaires is occupied by 62-year-old Vasily Anisimov . The businessman's family (44-year-old Ekaterina Anisimova and 14-year-old son Nikolai) lives in the prestigious Zurichatmk quartel - next door to the “queen of rock and roll” Tina Turner.
The owner of 3-4 billion francs made his fortune trading raw materials and real estate. His entrepreneurial instinct never let him down - experts called it a waste of money to buy an apartment for his daughter in the center of Manhattan for $10 million, but in less than 10 years its value has increased fivefold. While the names of the billionaire's wife and son are often mentioned on the pages of gossip columns, the businessman himself is surrounded by a wall of silence - information about him rarely appears in the press, the compilers of the rating complained.
Scheffler
Yuri Shefler, a 46-year-old Genevan and owner of the S.P.I. group of companies, specializing in the production of alcoholic beverages, in particular the Stolichnaya ® Premium Vodka brand, popular outside Russia, takes 4th place in our mini-rating. Bilan magazine estimates his fortune at 2.5-3 billion francs, noting that, apparently, this year Yuri Shefler became the owner of a huge estate in Malibu. At the Port of New York's West Side Terminal, where the billionaire's 440-foot yacht Serene is moored, a parking space costs $2,000 a day, the newspaper reports.
Pumpyansky Kolomoisky
5th and 6th places were shared between the owners of 2-3 billion francs - the Pumpyansky family and the new face of the Bilan rating, native of Dnepropetrovsk Igor Kolomoisky . They all also live in Geneva.
From the windows of the Swiss apartment of one of the richest Ukrainians (third on the Forbes list in 2012) there is a wonderful view of the Geneva Jet d'Eau fountain, the compilers of the rating report. One of the founders of the largest commercial bank in Ukraine, PrivatBank, controls a significant share of the Ukrainian air transportation market.According to Bilan, he also owns 10% of the company Central European Media (CME), which owns leading TV channels in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and, of course, Ukraine. CME, founded by billionaire Ronald Lauder (son of Estée Lauder, who founded the cosmetics company of the same name), is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Igor Kolomoisky is also known for his support of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. The Ukrainian billionaire is the chairman of the European Jewish Council and the European Council of the Jewish Community of Geneva, which includes his compatriot Vladimir Chertok, the publication reports.
The Pumpyansky family was not idle in 2013. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), whose chairman of the board of directors is Dmitry Pumpyansky, continues to expand in the international market. Another business of Dmitry Pumpyansky, the Sinara group, signed a contract last year to supply 40 locomotives to Russian Railways, and a new hotel complex appeared in the Arkhyz-1650 ski village, located near Sochi, this summer.
The son of Dmitry Pumpyansky, who graduated from the University of Geneva, has fully recovered from the plane crash in which he was involved last year, the publication reports. In July, Alexander founded the real estate company Segilo in Zurich.
Scheffler
In 7th place in the ranking is Vyacheslav Kantor, also living in Geneva. . According to Bilan estimates, his fortune has decreased by 700 million francs compared to last year and amounts to 1.5-2 billion francs. This year has not been easy for the Russian agrochemical industry. The fall in exchange rates and the decline in the market value of the two world's largest potash producers - Acron and Uralkali - must have had unpleasant consequences for the 60-year-old entrepreneur, who owns 84% and 2.7% of the shares, respectively.
This year, the President of the European Jewish Congress was elected to the post of Chairman of the Political Council of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), whose President is the already mentioned Ronald Lauder. The Jerusalem Post included Vyacheslav Kantor in its list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world at number 19 - this is 15 places higher than last year.
Kulibaeva
Dinara Kulibaeva, whom Bilan calls one of the richest women in Central Asia, has lived in Geneva since 2010. Compared to last year, her fortune remained stable - about 1-1.5 billion francs. According to the publication, the billionaire, who is not interested in social life, attends intensive French language courses. Both of her daughters go to school in Geneva, and her son has just graduated from university in London.
The daughter of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan prefers education to politics - the Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences makes a lot of efforts to involve young people in the educational process, both in Kazakhstan and in Geneva. In June 2013, Dinara Kulibaeva founded the Montes Alti Foundation, whose main goal is to promote education among children and youth of the canton of Geneva.In 2012, the Kulibayev family took 3rd place in our ranking, but the current 8th place does not mean that others have become richer. It’s just that this time Bilan took into account only the share owned by Dinara, since her husband, Timer, currently resides permanently in Kazakhstan.
Yakubovsky
In 9th place in the Russian-language part of the Bilan rating is another new face, a resident of the semi-canton of Obvalden, Dmitry Yakubovsky, with 500-600 million francs. According to the economic magazine, the 50-year-old lawyer and father of four children successfully sold his project to the financial and industrial group AFK Sistema, and transferred a significant part of the proceeds to Switzerland. He settled in Engelberg (whose name translates as "Mountain of Angels") on the advice of his brother Stav Jacobi (Stanislav Jakubovsky), president of the Zurich volleyball club Volero and head of the women's national team.
Shakhnovsky
Vasily Shakhnovsky, according to Bilan, has retained his fortune (400-500 million francs), which allowed him to take 10th place on our list this year. An engineer by training, a liquidator of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant managed to be a member of the Moscow government and a shareholder of the Yukos oil company. According to the economic magazine, he moved to Switzerland after two of his partners were imprisoned. This year, daughter Yulia Shakhnovskaya became director of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum.
Safin
200-300 million francs allowed the Safin family to come to the attention of Bilan and take 11th place in our ranking. According to the publication, the origins of the family's wealth are Ralif Safin, former vice president of the Lukoil oil company (and father of singer Alsou). According to our Swiss colleagues, his younger brother, 50-year-old Richat, lives in Geneva in a wonderful house purchased in 2004 for 20 million francs. The Safins' professional interests include sugar trading and real estate. The family also owns a network of Russian gas stations Artoil, which appeared on the Romanian market this year.
Karimova-Tillyaeva and Tillyaev
In 12th place are Bilan ranking newcomers Timur Tillyaev and Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva with a fortune estimated at 100-200 million francs. The youngest daughter of the President of Uzbekistan lives with her family in the canton of Geneva. Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva is the Ambassador of Uzbekistan to UNESCO and is involved in charity work. Her husband is an entrepreneur and owns a transport company, as well as an indoor market and a network of parking lots in Uzbekistan (according to Bilan). In an interview recently published by the BBC Russian Service, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva said that he owns a small chain of stores in Geneva. According to Bilan, in 2010, Timur Tillyaev bought an estate with an area of 5,812 square meters on the lake for 43.45 million francs.
In the near future, publications in France, Germany, Italy and other countries will write about their compatriots who have joined the list of super-rich people as one of the most prosperous countries peace. We are also waiting for the richest “born in the USSR” there. And in Russia, in particular.
#10 – Magdalena Martullo-Blocker ($3.8 billion)
Magdalena Martullo-Blocker is currently the CEO of Ems-Chemie, a Swiss company involved in the production of chemicals and polymer products. In 2014, Ems-Chemie's annual sales were approximately 1.972 million Swiss francs ($2 billion). In 2015, Martullo-Blocker entered politics and was elected national councilor (photo-gazettereview.com).
#9 – Ivan Glasenberg ($3.8 billion)
Ivan Glasenberg only became a Swiss citizen in 2011, but he is still considered one of the richest citizens. In 1984 he joined Glencore, an influential mining company headquartered in Switzerland. By 2002, he was appointed its chief executive officer. His net income has been steadily declining over time as the economic climate has changed, but he still has a pretty fat wallet.
#8 – Rachel Blocker ($3.9 billion)
Currently, Rachel and Magdalena Blocker, her sister, have a large share in the Ems-Chemie company. However, Rachel doesn't actually work there. She runs her father's other company, Robinvest. Robinvest is an investment company, and although it is not as successful as Ems-Chemie, it still serves as an excellent additional source of income.
#7 – Dona Bertarelli ($3.9 billion)
Dona Bertarelli is not like most other entrepreneurs. Her passion is sailing, which she is quite good at. In 2010, Bertarelli and her team won the Bol d'Or Mirabaud, becoming the first woman to win the race. Most of her wealth comes from inheritance. Serono, her family's business, was sold for more than $9 billion to Merck KGaA in 2007.
#6 – Thomas Schmidheiny ($5.1 billion)
Thomas Schmidheiny owns vineyards all over the world, but calls Klosters his home. In 1984, he inherited his father's company Holcim, which is still one of the world's leading cement companies. Schmidheiny stepped down in 2003 but still owns approximately 12% of the highly successful international company.
#5 – Hansjörg Wyss ($5.9 billion)
Hansjörg Wyss graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich with a Master of Science degree. Later he went to study at Harvard University and received an MBA degree. Wyss worked in a variety of different jobs in the textile and iron and steel industries after graduating, and eventually met with one of the founders of Synthes, a Swiss medical device manufacturer. By 1997, Wyss founded Syntheses USA. The company was highly successful, and he stepped down as its chairman when Johnson & Johnson acquired the company for $21.3 billion in 2012.
#4 – Isolde and Will Liebherr($6.1 billion)
Isolde and Will Liebherr are brother and sister. Together they run the equipment manufacturing company Liebherr Group. The couple has continued the business their father started, and they say they intend to pass the company on to their children in the future. Today the Liebherr Group employs more than 40,000 people.
#3 – Gianluigi Aponte($8.2 billion)
The businessman began his career as a ferry captain, and while working, he met his wife Rafaela. In 1970 they founded the Mediterranean Shipping Company. The business started with one ship that transported goods between Europe and Africa. Today, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has become almost a global superpower in terms of container shipping. In the late 1980s, MSC branched out to become MSC Cruise, a successful cruise line. In 2014, Aponte stepped down as CEO of MSC, handing over control of the company to his son Diego.
#2 – Marguerite Louis-Dreyfus ($8.2 billion)
Born in Leningrad in the USSR in the 60s. In 1988, she met and married Robert Louis-Dreyfus, an influential French businessman who was chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Group, a company involved in the energy, agriculture and shipbuilding industries. In 2009, Robert died after a long battle with leukemia, resulting in Margarita inheriting the business.
#1 – Ernesto Bertarelli– ($8.6 billion)
Ernesto Bertarelli studied business abroad, receiving a degree from Babson College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 1996, he took over Serono, his family's pharmaceutical company, greatly improving the business. Bertarelli is an avid philanthropist.
Switzerland is now home to 129 people with a net worth of more than $1 billion, up from 86 in 2014, according to the economic journal Bilanz, which annually compiles a list of the richest residents of the Alpine republic.
Where exactly do billionaires prefer to live? First of all, these are the Cantons of Geneva - 25 people live there, and Zurich - 19 people, then the Canton of Vaud, which has 14 billionaires. But not everyone likes big cities; for example, some very wealthy people prefer picturesque landscapes The Alps in the Cantons of Bern and Grisons - each of them has 10 billionaires. When compiling these statistics, it was taken into account that dollar billionaires who are members of the same family may have their place of residence in different cantons of the Alpine Republic.
As for the richest family in Switzerland, it is still the Kamprad family, which owns the Ikea furniture empire. Ingvar Kamprad, the head of the family and founder of Ikea, who lived for a long time in Switzerland, has now returned to Sweden, and his three sons, Swiss citizens, live in the Canton of Vaud. The Kamprad family's fortune is estimated at 42.5 billion francs.
Wooden bridges that have stood for 700 years, the unguarded Government House, the saddest monument in the world and houses whose beams are soaked in bull's blood or donkey urine - these are impressions of Lucerne, a kind of Catholic stronghold in generally Protestant Switzerland. But not the only ones. The Eurotour to “Magnificent Switzerland”, organized by the “Master of Travel” company, is today remembered as a bright fairy tale...
For the New Year - to the Government House!
To be honest, the article was planned to begin with the phrase “If you are bored, go to the Government House before the New Year: it will become more fun.” But then bad associations arose. Although in Lucerne this message is pure truth. Here at the Government House, New Year's "aperitifs" are held annually - any person who for some reason was left alone on the eve of the New Year can come here and find company. Absolutely free, by the way.
The government building seems to be doing just fine without any metal detectors, security posts or other mandatory security measures. And nothing - it’s been standing for more than a hundred years. Our tourist group I walked freely into the hall - there were no obstacles from the police. If only because we didn’t find a single policeman there.
Canton, by the way, is preparing for a referendum. It will be decided what the new university, which is planned to be built in the city, will be like. There is a model of the university building in the Government House - any local resident can come in and express their opinion about it.
The saddest monument in the world
The famous monument of Lucerne is the "Dying Lion". It was erected in honor of the Swiss who guarded the French king and died during the storming of the Tuileries Palace on August 10, 1792. “To the Swiss, faithful and brave,” says the inscription on it. “This is the saddest and most touching stone statue in the world,” Mark Twain wrote about this monument.
Guardsmen from the canton of Lucerne were gladly hired by both the French kings and the Vatican to guard the Pope. The little casket opens simply: Lucerne, unlike its neighbors, where the reformers led by Calvin are oh so well remembered, remains largely a Catholic canton. 72% of local residents consider themselves to belong to the Roman Church. The penetration of other religions is frowned upon here.
Another attraction is the Kapellbrücke bridge over the Reuss River. A wooden structure more than 200 meters long was built in 1365! And it has survived safely almost to this day. In 1993, the bridge was badly damaged by fire: it is said that a young man threw a cigarette butt from the bridge, which hit a boat. A significant part of the bridge burned down, but was restored later. But the stone Wasserturm tower, which is located in the middle of the bridge, was not damaged. Previously, it was both a prison and a torture chamber. Now it houses a souvenir shop.
From the Reuss embankment, the Chateau Gutsch Hotel, located on a high hill on the outskirts of Lucerne, looks magnificent. They say that when it was put up for sale for $3 million, Michael Jackson was ready to immediately shell out $25 million. However, he was refused: they say, historical monuments not sold to foreigners. But now it belongs to the “native Swiss” Alexander Lebedev. That very same deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
Lucerne's ancient buildings in the Old Town sport red and yellow beams. Beauty actually has something to do with it, but it’s not the main thing. It turns out that in the Middle Ages, the beams of houses were impregnated with an antiseptic - after all, epidemics were raging in Europe. And the best antiseptics were then considered to be ox blood and donkey urine. Now it’s clear where the color comes from?
In Switzerland there are German guest workers...
By the way, while crossing the Reuss Bridge, we saw a real Swiss beggar. Can you imagine a beggar in this well-fed and rich country? “Oh, poor thing...” one of the female members of the tour group started out of habit. However, to our surprise, our guide immediately cut short the “sympathizers”: “There’s no need to feel sorry for him - it’s his choice! He has the opportunity to call the social service, and he will be provided with housing, as well as unemployment benefits - about 3 thousand francs. And I’ve been seeing this beggar here for a good 20 years.” Having heard about the amount of unemployment benefits (remember, Swiss franc more expensive than a dollar USA), many immediately stopped feeling sorry for the Swiss beggars and began to envy them.
The conversation turned to guest workers. “Well, yes, they come to work with us from Germany, and from France, and from Italy. But no one feels any complaints, much less displeasure, towards them - people came to our country to work for us,” said former Minsk resident and now Swiss citizen Clara. By the way, according to her, street cleaning is carried out exclusively by local residents. "How else? Who loves their homeland more than them? Yes, and street cleaning is the safety of citizens. And it’s not safe to trust it to someone else,” the guide explained.
In Old Lucerne, almost any building has a five-hundred-year (or even more) history. And they were preserved almost in their original form. Of course, they are being restored, but still...
About hobbies, salaries and cows
On the road from Lucerne to Zurich, we ask Clara about life in Switzerland. “The main thing is that every Swiss should have a hobby. If you don’t indicate a hobby in the employer’s application form, they simply won’t hire you: they will think that you are a boring person, uninterested in anything. For example, I sing in a church choir. Every fifth Swiss takes part in amateur performances. It’s hard to imagine a village without its own folk ensemble,” says Klara.
The topic of holidays was also touched upon. So, it turns out that the most important holiday in Switzerland is the herding of cows to the Alpine meadows. On this occasion, cows are washed with shampoo (!), their eyelashes are painted with mascara (!!) and their tails are curled (!!!). Well, then, naturally, they send us to the mountains - until autumn. Together with them, a staff of shepherds, milkmen and cheesemakers goes to the mountains. A bell is hung on each cow, and the heaviest one is on the record holder for milk yield. It was hard to lift your head from the grass. If anyone is interested, the average milk yield from a cow in Switzerland is 30 liters of milk per day. The main record-breaking cow produces 60 liters of milk.
Of course, we talked about salaries and income. If unemployment benefits are about 3 thousand francs, then the minimum wage is 3800. The average worker receives about 5800 francs. Well, when several Rostov teachers traveling with us found out how much teachers in Switzerland earn, they clutched their hearts: from 8 to 12 thousand francs! With a 20 hour work week.
"What do you want? Our professions of policeman and teacher are the most respected,” Clara was surprised. Eh, us too. But there is not always an equal sign between “the most respected” and “well paid”...
Russian trace in the city of millionaires
And here is Zurich. The name of which sounds almost synonymous with the word “money”. If 1,600 millionaires live in Geneva, then in Zurich their number is innumerable. Their villas occupy entire blocks on the Gold and Silver coasts of Lake Zurich.
As in other Swiss cities that we have already visited, Old city superbly preserved. Among the attractions, we note the women's abbey of Fraumunster with stained glass windows by Marc Chagall - a native of Vitebsk painted 50 sq.m. in 1970.
By the way, Fraumünster has a rich history. There was once a girls' school here, where girls were prepared for high society. Then the Reformation broke out, and all sorts of goods, including salt, were stored on the territory of Fraumünster. Later, at the end of the 19th century, the abbey became stables for Napoleon's army. Immediately after the French, the Russian army came and quartered here for six months. They say that a few months after the army left, a baby boom broke out in Zurich. Of course, the army corps numbered 20 thousand people, while the population of Zurich was only 21 thousand. So the Slavs are not completely strangers here...
Grossmünster is also impressive - the most large cathedral Zurich. St. Peter's Church is notable for the largest clock in the world (the minute hand weighs 92 kg, and the diameter of the clock mechanism is 8.6 m).
However, Zurich is also famous for its more modern history. It was in Zurich that Churchill delivered his famous speech on September 19, 1946 about the need to create a “United States of Europe.” This event is immortalized by a memorial plaque embedded directly into the sidewalk. Thirty years before Churchill, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin made his mark in Zurich. However, this is said modestly - he stayed here for more than a year, as the sign on the building reminds: “Lenin, the Fuhrer of the Russian Revolution, lived here from February 21, 1916 to April 2, 1917.” And in the local library he wrote his famous work “Imperialism as the highest degree of capitalism.”
In the coffee shop that Vladimir Ilyich loved to go to, you can still drink coffee today. Which we did with pleasure.
Shopping mile
It is in Zurich that the still active Masonic lodge Alpina (the main one in Switzerland) is located, as well as the headquarters of the international football and hockey federations FIFA and IIHF.
The most famous street in Zurich is the Station Street, also called the “Shopping Mile”. You can buy anything. We also took a ride on the local tram, which runs through the entire “Shopping Mile” and goes further, only Zurich residents know where. Tram in Switzerland is the main type public transport. Well, how did they live to live like this: at a public stop there is an electronic board that indicates how many minutes later the nearest trams and their numbers will arrive, and on the tram itself the same electronic board tells you how many minutes it will take you to get to this or that stop. And the main thing is that the schedule does not fail. Everything - with Swiss precision!
By the way, the local station is an attraction in itself: it is the largest in the world.
Every day, 1,650 trains depart from 54 platforms. On the top floor there is a huge hall with an area of 7 thousand square meters, where the world's leading chess players hold simultaneous games with ordinary Swiss people, stage opera performances, and New Year The country's largest Christmas tree, decorated with Swarovski, is erected.
It is impossible not to mention the local university. After all, Rosa Luxemburg, Roentgen, and Einstein studied there. Among its graduates are 27 Nobel laureates!
Waterfall. Waterfall!
Zurich is our penultimate “Swiss” stop. After the man-made wonders, we went to admire the natural wonder - the Rhine Falls. But it is impossible to describe it in words, and in the age of digital photography, it is completely sinful. Extraordinary beauty, enormous inner power, an element, next to which you feel uneasy...
By the way, you have to pay to see the waterfall. If memory serves, then 3 francs. For some reason, Ostap Bender immediately came to mind with his idea of taking money for the Failure in Pyatigorsk (“So that it does not fail too much!”).
This was our last stop in Switzerland - the rest of the way lay in Nuremberg. We stopped for the night in a small but cozy hotel in Germany. We went to the cafe. “It’s almost communism here!” - the first reaction after looking at the menu. Yes, compared to Swiss prices, everything was really very cheap. The magnificent country of Switzerland. If you have a Swiss salary.
Well, about Nuremberg, its proud status as the unrecognized capital of a non-existent country, separatism and red beer - in the next, final part of our report on the European tour.
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In the annual list of the most affluent residents of the Confederation, published in the economic magazine Bilan (or Bilanz in the German version), little has changed since 2011. Fans of counting money in other people's wallets rushed this morning to magazine kiosks, the shelves of which are decorated with traditional black and gold covers. The golden color was not chosen by chance, because the first December issue of Bilan contains a list of those who were not greatly or at all affected by either global economic crises or national political cataclysms.
But just yesterday evening the list was announced at a soirèe organized by the magazine’s editors in Geneva Hotel Intercontinental. This was followed by a discussion on the topic “Is Switzerland still attractive to the rich?” The moderator was the editor-in-chief of Bilan magazine, Stéphane Benoit-Gaudet, and the conversation was attended by Geneva Minister of Finance David Hiler, fiscal lawyer Xavier Oberson, Patrick Delarive, president and founder of the Delarive Group, and Bilan deputy editor-in-chief Miret Zaki.
Having received food for thought, the guests moved on to a cocktail, but the main topic of conversation remained, of course, those whose names were included in the LIST.
Let us remind you that our Swiss colleagues who compile the list are guided by two main criteria: the candidate must be Swiss or a resident of Switzerland and have more than 100 million.
The list of rich people includes a variety of people: representatives of old Swiss, French, German and other families who inherited fortunes; large businessmen whose names are associated with world-famous brands; and the owners of the so-called “new” money, that is, those who became rich relatively recently. The absolute palm was retained by the owner of IKEA, Swede Ingvar Kamprad, who lives in the canton of Vaud. His fortune grew over last year by 3 billion and is about 39 billion.
But, of course, we were primarily interested in familiar names. Based on Bilan data, we compiled our own mini-list, which has also become traditional.
The first place in it, as in previous years, is firmly occupied by Viktor Vekselberg, a resident of the canton of Zug, whose fortune has increased by 4 billion and is now estimated at 14-15 billion. (He ranks fourth on the list of Swiss rich people.) The sale of his 12.5% stake in the Russian-British oil group TNK brought him 6.5 billion francs, significantly more than observers had predicted. “This money will be invested in the development high technology, biomedicine, alternative energy sources and infrastructure projects in Russia,” the magazine quotes the 55-year-old oligarch as saying. Being “registered” in Zug, he directs the development of the research center in Skolkovo from here. However, we do not know what Vekselberg answered to the question about his main place of residence asked by the Zug cantonal service when he decided to become the owner of his new apartment overlooking the lake. As you know, actual residence is a prerequisite for foreigners wishing to purchase real estate in Switzerland.
According to the magazine's estimates, Viktor Vekselberg's two main Swiss businesses - 13% in Sulzer and 49% in OC Oerlikon - should be profitable if they brought about a billion francs to their partial owner. He also owns 7% of the Russian aluminum giant Rusal. In addition, through his Renova group, he became the main shareholder of the Intergrated Energy Systems group, the largest private supplier of gas and electricity in Russia.
We have already written that Vekselberg moved to Zug after the residents of Zurich voted to abolish the flat tax for foreigners. I wonder where Viktor Feliksovich will direct his steps if the entire Confederation speaks out against “privileges for the rich” at the referendum planned for 2015?
Gennady Timchenko also retained his second position on the list, whose fortune increased by 2 billion. and now, according to Bilan, amounts to 7-8 billion. But you can probably believe it, because it was to this publication that a 60-year-old entrepreneur with a Finnish citizen’s passport gave his first interview in Switzerland three years ago. In general, having been in the shadows for a long time, in Lately Gennady Nikolaevich shows a certain media activity: his name is increasingly appearing in the press, and a recent issue of the Russian Forbes magazine was published with his photograph on the cover.
Timchenko's main business in Switzerland is the trading company Gunvor, specializing in oil trading. It was founded by Timchenko together with his partner, the Swede Torbjorn Tornqvist, both billionaires participate in it equally - 46% each. Despite its Geneva residence, the company's office is located in Rhone Street - Gunvor has already become a world leader and is actively working in 35 countries. Gennady Timchenko himself obviously loves variety - his shareholding in various industries (coal mining, construction, petrochemicals, hotel business, aviation, insurance and food) has expanded, reports the Swiss publication. He also owns a 23% stake in Novatek, the main independent gas producer in Russia, which is actively strengthening its presence in the market: in particular, the company signed a 10-year, 6 billion contract with the German group EnBW.
The Kulibayev family, the second daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev Dinara and her husband Timur, fell behind Timchenko, but retained its third place in the list of the richest. Dinara remains one of the most inconspicuous of the wealthy ladies living in Switzerland - if it were not for the villa she purchased in Asnieres for 72 million in 2009, we might not have known about her presence in Switzerland. Her husband, who heads the KazEnergia group, does not formally live in Switzerland. However, after Bern opened an investigation into the laundering of 600 million francs by the pair in 2010, their names increasingly come to our attention in the Swiss media. Just last Monday, the former minister of Kazakhstan and president of the country's largest private bank, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is currently hiding from English justice, admitted in an interview with the Le Temps newspaper that it was he who made public the data exposing Timur Kulibayev.
Fourth place on the list went to the Louis-Dreyfus family, whose fortune increased by 2,250 million. This is the first time this name has appeared on our pages, although the heiress to her late husband’s empire, 50-year-old Margarita, speaks excellent Russian. True, in a recent Swiss television program dedicated to her, she spoke very well in English.
This blonde and mother of three boys apparently has a strong character - having entered into inheritance rights, she fired the general director of the family business, Jacques Weir, and several other senior employees appointed by her husband shortly before his death, the magazine reports. According to Swiss journalists, it was not easy for Margarita to take control of the huge empire of her husband, who made a fortune in trading raw materials. Robert Louis-Dreyfus personally registered the Akira family foundation in the Netherlands, and the trading and intermediary company Louis-Dreyfus Commodities, a leader in the market of agricultural raw materials throughout the world, in France. But, apparently, Margarita is coping.
Despite moving one place lower on the Bilan list, 61-year-old Vasily Anisimov, whose fortune, made in construction and real estate and estimated at between 3 and 4 billion, is doing well. This year, his wife Catherine (43) and son Nikolai (13) received the title of “bourgeois of Küsnacht,” the Zurich equivalent of the Geneva quarter of Cologny. The businessman himself, originally from Kazakhstan, is in no hurry to receive a Swiss passport. Rumors concerning him come from both his homeland and Moscow. He is said to be interested in the Moscow Kristall distillery, which produces several types of popular vodkas, from Pure Kristall to Putinka. His daughters Angelina and Anna, who previously shone on the pages of American glamor magazines, now live quietly in New York, where Anisimov’s son-in-law Ryan Friedman is rapidly developing his real estate empire called Corigin Real Estate. But the original company of “our” entrepreneur, registered in Zug Coalco, is subject to liquidation by his decision.
The person whom we have listed in sixth place on the list of the richest Swiss people, formally, of course, cannot be considered “ours”. However, his connections with Russia are much more active than most of the above and below listed citizens. We are talking about the owner of the family pharmaceutical company Ferring, Frederik Paulsen, who is also the Honorary Consul of Russia in the canton of Vaud. We recently published a lengthy interview with this extraordinary person, so we won’t repeat it. Let us only note that even the compilers of the “rich list,” who clearly do not have much love for the people on it, are rather favorable towards Paulsen and call him “one of the last adventurers on this planet.”
One can be happy for Mr. Paulsen: the search for adventure, which has already taken him to seven of the eight existing poles, does not interfere with the prosperity of his business - according to Bilan, his fortune has grown over the past year by 1250 million and ranges from 2 to 3 billion francs. In addition to his main enterprise, Ferring, located in Saint-Pré near Lausanne, this “modest chemist,” as the Swiss call him, runs a number of companies involved in medical research.
We don’t know how accurate the estimates of Mr. Paulsen’s capital are, but our Swiss colleagues were definitely wrong about one thing - he has not three, but four children, his youngest son Sasha is three and a half years old.
Number 7 on our list is 45-year-old Yuri Shefler, who specializes in alcoholic beverages and luxury products and is called by the Swiss “the uncrowned vodka king.” According to Bilan, he has 2-3 billion francs. It is interesting that in the Russian Forbes list of “Russian Richest Businessmen” for 2011, he took the last, two-hundredth place (with a capital of $500 million), and in a similar list for 2012, Shifler does not appear at all.
Bilan also hints at the litigation that the Russian government has waged against Shifler's company Spirits International, part of the SPI group, since 2002 - it concerns the rights to the vodka brands Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya. However, the magazine does not comment in any way on the information we found on the Oligarchy website. According to this source, Schiffler lost those rights last summer. “The Court of Appeal in The Hague left the exclusive right to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya brands to Russia. As RAPSI reports with reference to a message from the law firm Hoyng Monegier, which represented the interests of Russian Federation, the complaint by the Dutch company Spirits International was rejected."
We found the same information on the Pravo.ru website, so it is probably true. But the businessman living in Geneva does not despair and finds time to relax on his 133.9 m long yacht called Serena.
On the same level as Yuri Shefler is another resident of Geneva - Vyacheslav Cantor. His financial condition has not changed in any way over the past year (2-3 billion francs), but the list of awards has been supplemented by the French Legion of Honor for his contribution to the fight for the rights of minorities, against racism and anti-Semitism. Indeed, a 59-year-old MAI graduate and Honorary Doctor of Tel Aviv University, Kantor is actively involved in social work, holding a number of positions: President of the European Jewish Congress, co-chair of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, President of the International Luxembourg Forum on Prevention nuclear disaster, President of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, Chairman of the European Jewish Fund.
This does not prevent him from running a successful business: Kantor controls 84% of Acron and 2.7% of Uralkali, the two largest fertilizer producers in the world.
His passion for horses and art is well known in Geneva - lovers of the latter still recall the exhibition of a small part of his private collection, which was held at the Palais des Nations in 2009.
Tenth place on our list is occupied by another lady - Gulnara Karimova, Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the UN European Office. As we recently reported, the eldest daughter of the President of Uzbekistan is now involved in an investigation by the Swiss Prosecutor's Office, which has frozen hundreds of millions of francs in accounts belonging to two citizens of Uzbekistan suspected of money laundering. Both Uzbeks worked for Coca-Cola Uzbekistan, owned by Gulnara Karimova. But Bilan does not write anything about this. It only says that both she and her sister Lola own real estate in Geneva, and Gulnara is engaged not only in business diplomacy, but also makes a career as a singer and fashion and jewelry designer (we have already written about her achievements in the latter area). According to a Swiss magazine, she has just launched a perfume called Mystérieuse, created together with the famous French perfumer Bertrand Duchafour.
Gulnara's fortune is estimated at between 900 million and a billion; it did not change in 2012.
Finally, the last of the list is the former president of the Yukos-Moscow company and the former owner of 4.3% of the shares of the destroyed oil company Vasily Shakhnovsky. You can read about how his relationship with YUKOS ended in the book “Prison and Freedom,” published this year, written by Mikhail Khodorkovsky in co-authorship with journalist Natalya Gevorkyan. Vasily Shakhnovsky, described in the book as an exemplary family man and teetotaler, lives in the canton of Vaud, taking advantage of the benefits of flat taxation - while he can.
He is included in the “List” for the second time: last year his fortune was estimated at half a billion, this year - at 400 million. But he does not lose heart. According to Bilan, Shakhnovsky lives for his own pleasure, indulging in his passion - golf. And trying to stay as far away from the legal troubles of their former partners as possible.
