New York
‘Oligarchs brace for a downturn,’ screams a New York business headline, a fact that sends me rushing to buy hankies, now selling at a premium at every corner store. Bloomberg News calculates that the richest 25 Russians on the Forbes list have lost a collective $230 billion since last March. Which means that these 25 have lost more than four times Warren Buffet’s total wealth. It’s very good news, unless you’re selling private jets, superyachts, are a hooker or a pimp, sell gaudy jewellery or own a nightclub. Actually, it couldn’t happen to nicer guys, not that they’re exactly down and out. Apparently, the worst hit is Oleg Deripaska, a Cheeta lookalike without the chimp’s charm and good manners, whose two great buddies in the UK are none other than Jacob and Nat Rothschild, now nervously not answering their mobiles in case Oleg needs cash.
Deripaska muscled his way into RussNeft, a giant private oil company.
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