Tag: Romania

Forbes Billionaires and the Global Economy

On Mar 09 2011

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This is the eighth year I have worked on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires. As always, I find the personal tales fascinating. I met with new Ukrainian billionaire Yuri Kosiuk at the Four Seasons in New York last fall when he was pitching Wall Street for investment dollars for his poultry producer. We had coffee and a long chat about how his business is faring in Ukraine’s often fraught political environment. His take: if you know how to play the game you can succeed. We heard the same from Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian billionaire who increased his fortune six-fold when he took his cement operations public. He is convinced he can maneuver the politics in Africa to build a continental (and global) cement giant.

On a macro level, the total net worth and number of billionaires says a great deal about how a country is doing. My thesis: in Ukraine and Russia, a disproportionate amount of wealth looks to be accumulated in a few hands, the relic of a centralized Soviet system (in Kazakhstan we don’t see the same because the state still controls many assets under the tight grip of President Nursultan Nazarbaev) (Caveat: some of the wealth is held in investments in other countries but I think my thesis holds true for the most part). Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, though central planning was also instituted, the political systems and opposition to communism emerged differently and there appears to be more spreading of wealth and perhaps the opportunity to still amass wealth. (see stats below) Indeed, Poland’s robust stock exchange has regional players flocking to go public. Poland is serving as a model for wealth creation.

We can also see where money is coming from – US’ biggest billionaire names come from tech, investments/finance and retail – think Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Waltons of Wal-Mart whereas Western Europe is all about luxury brands like LVMH’s Bernard Arnault or Tod’s Diego Della Valle. In Eastern Europe, we see finance as a leader, and agribusiness. In the CIS, commodities dominate, though agribusiness is growing.

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $1.3 trillion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $15.3 trillion
8% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 412
Total Population: 315 million

Russia

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $432.7 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $1.6 trillion
27% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 101
Population: 140 million

Ukraine

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $30.3 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $165 billion
18% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 8
Population: 45 million

Kazakhstan

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $12 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $144 billion
8% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 5
Population: 15.6 million

Poland

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $8.9 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $472 billion
2% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 4
Population: 38 million

Czech Republic

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $12.3 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $185 billion
6% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 3
Population: 10 million

Romania

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $3.3 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $163 billion
2% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 2
Population: 21 million

Nigeria

Total 2011 Billionaires Net Worth: $15.8 billion
GDP 2011 forecast (World Bank): $230 billion
GDP/NW: 7% of country’s GDP
Total 2011 Billionaires: 2
Population: 160 million

Spring and the Business of Green

By admin

On Apr 07 2010

In Analysis

Consecutive 70 degree days in NYC and I finally feel Spring is really here!

April’s theme at Global Markets is the Business of Green. We have some interesting guest writers to come, and I will be looking at what green means in Central and Eastern Europe. A friend of mine in Romania who is planning to put solar panels on his roof led me to an organization dedicated to promoting green building in the region. Central and Eastern Europe has definitely gotten a boost from the European Union’s very strong green movement. For example, Armenia has launched an EU-funded Web portal Renewable Energy Armenia. Ukraine has benefitted from green funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Georgia is exploring a carbon credit program. Some countries have longer to go than others – the coal mining towns in Ukraine’s East need much cleaning up after the pitfalls of Soviet industrialization. The scariest information I ever heard was when I took a demography class with Murray Feshbach who has been chronicling the death of the environment in Russia for decades. He is now with the Woodrow Wilson Center.

For more “green” info check out Ecoseed which says it is a comprehensive green news site.

More Billionaires in Eastern Europe, Russia and rest of CIS says Forbes

By admin

On Mar 10 2010

In Analysis

2009 was a year of recovery for the World’s Billionaires as a whole reports Forbes (for whom I have been freelancing). The wealthiest in Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS states improved their fortunes as commodities markets recovered and world stock markets rose.

Poland, a success story among transition economies, but which had only 1 billionaire on the list last year, Zygmunt Solorz-Zak, is back with 4 billionaires. In addition to Solorz-Zak, Jan Kulczyk, Leszek Czarnecki and Michal Solowow return to the Forbes billionaires list. Kulczyk, who was last on the Forbes list in 2006, is strengthened by his energy holdings.

Dinu Patriciu, Romania’s richest billionaire, is also making a big push in energy, going after licenses to explore for oil and metals in the Black Sea; in January he even got patent for a method of mining and processing seabed sediment.

Despite the fact Romania’s GDP contracted an estimated 7% in 2009 and its hopes to introduce the euro by 2014 may be thwarted by collapsing euro-economies like Greece, the country saw the return of former tennis ace, Ion Tiriac, to the Forbes billionaires list and added one new billionaire, Ioan Niculae, who has interests in agriculture.

Indeed it was a good year for agriculture – the world’s rising population needs to be fed. Andrej Babis joined the Forbes list as a new billionaire from the Czech Republic; his Agrofert agricultural holding company keeps growing and may be looking at European expansion plans. Along the same theme, two new Russian billionaires, Andrei Guriev, and Anatoly Lomakin, made their fortune in fertilizers; and fellow Russians Pyotr Kondrashev and Vyacheslav Kantor return to the billionaires list based on their interests in the fertilizer business.