| Without the privatisation gold rush that came in the wake of perestroika, Abramovich might now be a lowly technical worker earning £2,000 a year in Russia. Instead he has shot straight to the top of this list as the wealthiest man in Britain. He is also the sixth richest person in Europe, the 22nd richest in the world and a hero to Chelsea fans. Since buying the club last July, Abramovich has assembled - at enormous cost - a team that is now in the semi-finals of the Champions League and challenging for the Premiership title. The shy and secretive Abramovich, 37, is eligible for this list for two reasons: he owns Chelsea and spends much of his time at his town house in London's Belgravia or on his 440-acre Sussex estate. Yet his background is far from privileged. His mother died of blood poisoning when he was 18 months old and he was orphaned at four when his father was killed in a construction site accident. He was sent to live with relatives in Ukhta, a bleak oil industry town just outside the Arctic Circle. He studied at the local industrial institute then transferred to Moscow's Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas, where he sold retread car tyres as a sideline. With perestroika's arrival, he moved north again and set up a company to trade in oil products from the large refinery in Omsk, western Siberia. It prospered, attracting the attention of Boris Berezovsky (qv), then Russia's most influential tycoon. He wanted the clever kid from Omsk on his side and the pair bought the Sibneft oil business in 1995 for about £120m. When Berezovsky went into exile, Abramovich was left in charge of Sibneft. It is now worth about £8.8 billion and Abramovich's stake is worth £5.3 billion. Its value could have been even greater. Last year Sibneft agreed a merger with Yukos, Russia's biggest oil company, but the deal collapsed with the arrest on fraud charges of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos's chairman. Western oil companies are now queueing up to take over Sibneft. Shell, Total, Chevron and Texaco are all believed to have had talks with Abramovich's advisers about buying it. Analysts reckon that Sibneft's true value could go beyond £11 billion in such a takeover. Oil, though, is not his only interest. He has another £1 billion of holdings in aluminium, food production and pharmaceuticals groups. He has also spent £30m on a tank factory where, turning swords into ploughshares, he intends to make tractors. Huge dividends over the years from Sibneft and sales of stakes in his other companies add £2 billion to his fortune. This enormous liquidity has given Abramovich the money for his £260m spending spree in acquiring Chelsea, clearing its debts and filling the team with world-class players. He has also given £200m to Chukotka, the remote Russian region where he is governor. Aside from his homes in Britain and elsewhere in the world, Abramovich can relax on one of three yachts, including the £72m Pelorus, and travel by the ultimate status symbol, a private Boeing 737. Even after all the spending and donations, Abramovich is easily worth £8 billion. However, last month the Russian tax authorities sent a £545m demand to Sibneft. Abramovich may have nothing to fear, but we make a £500m provision for this. Even so, he is still way ahead at the top of this list and still a hero to Chelsea supporters if not to the Kremlin.
|
New entry
|
|
£m
|
|
