The richest Swiss The discreet charm of the Swiss bourgeoisie in the village for billionaires - before the traveler was looking for unknown countries, and now he is looking for wifi

In the annual list of the wealthiest residents of the Confederation, published in the economic magazine Bilan (or Bilanz in the German version), little has changed compared to 2011. Fans of counting money in other people's wallets rushed this morning to magazine kiosks, the shelves of which are decorated with a traditional black and gold cover. The golden color was not chosen by chance, because the first December issue of Bilan contains a list of those who were not strongly or not at all affected by either global economic crises or national political upheavals.

But last night the list was announced at a soirèe organized by the editors of the magazine at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva. This was followed by a discussion on the topic "Is Switzerland still attractive to the rich?". Bilan Editor-in-Chief Stéphane Benoît-Godet was the moderator, and Geneva Minister of Finance David Hiler, fiscal lawyer Xavier Auberson, Patrick Delarive, President and Founder of Delarive Group, and Bilan Deputy Editor-in-Chief Miret Zaki took part in the conversation.

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.

Recall that our Swiss colleagues who make 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 the rich includes a variety of people: representatives of ancient Swiss, French, German and other families who inherited fortunes; big businessmen whose names are associated with world famous brands; and owners of the so-called "new" money, that is, those who got rich relatively recently. The owner of IKEA, Swede Ingvar Kamprad, who lives in the canton of Vaud, retained the absolute palm. His fortune has grown over the past year by 3 billion and is about 39 billion.

But we, of course, were primarily interested in familiar surnames. Based on Bilan data, we have 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 overall list of Swiss rich.) The sale of his 12.5% stake in Russian-British oil group TNK brought him 6.5 billion francs, much more than observers had predicted. "This money will be invested in the development of high technologies, biomedicine, alternative energy sources and infrastructure projects in Russia," the magazine quoted the 55-year-old oligarch as saying. Being “registered” in Zug, he manages the development of the research center in Skolkovo from here. However, we do not know what Vekselberg's answer to the question about the main place of his stay, put to him by the cantonal service of Zug, when he decided to become the owner of his new apartment overlooking the lake. As you know, real residence is a prerequisite for foreigners who want to buy property in Switzerland.

The magazine estimates that 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 Russian aluminum giant Rusal. In addition, through his Renova group, he became the main shareholder of the Intergrated Energy Systems group, the largest private gas and electricity supplier in Russia.

We already wrote 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 scheduled for 2015?

Gennady Timchenko also retained his second position in the list, whose fortune increased by 2 billion. and is now, according to Bilan, 7-8 billion. And you can probably believe, because it was to this publication that a 60-year-old entrepreneur with a passport of a citizen of Finland gave his first interview in Switzerland three years ago. In general, having been in the shadows for a long time, Gennady Nikolayevich has recently shown a certain media activity: his name is increasingly found in the press, and a recent issue of the Russian Forbes magazine came out with his photograph on the cover.

Timchenko's main business in Switzerland is Gunvor, a trading company specializing in oil trading. It was founded by Timchenko together with his partner, the Swede Torbjorn Tornquist, both billionaires participate in it on an equal footing - 46% each. Despite the Geneva registration - the company's office is located on Rhone Street - Gunvor has already become a world leader and is active in 35 countries. Gennady Timchenko himself, obviously, loves diversity - his shareholding in various industries (coal mining, construction, petrochemistry, hotel business, aviation, insurance and food) has expanded, the Swiss edition reports. He also owns a 23% stake in Novatek, the main independent gas producer in Russia, which is actively increasing its presence in the market: in particular, the company signed a 10-year 6 billion contract with the German group EnBW.

The Kulibaev family, the second daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Dinara and her husband Timur, lagged 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 in Asnières she acquired in 2009 for 72 million, we might not have known about her presence in Switzerland. Her husband, who heads the KazEnergy group, does not formally live in Switzerland. However, after the discovery by Bern, in 2010, of the investigation into the laundering of 600 million francs by this couple, their names are increasingly attracting our attention in the Swiss media. As recently as last Monday, former Kazakh minister and president of the country's largest private bank, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is currently on the run from British justice, admitted in an interview with Le Temps that he was the one who exposed Timur Kulibayev's data.

Fourth place on the list went to the Louis-Dreyfus family, whose wealth grew by 2250 million. This name appears on our pages for the first time, although the heiress of her late husband's empire, 50-year-old Margarita, speaks perfect Russian. True, in a recent Swiss television program dedicated to her, she also spoke very well in English.

This blonde and mother of three boys has, in all likelihood, a strong character - having entered into inheritance rights, she fired the CEO 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 the commodity trade. Robert Louis-Dreyfus personally registered the Akira family foundation in the Netherlands, and Louis-Dreyfus Commodities, the global market leader in agricultural raw materials, in France. But, apparently, Margarita copes.

Despite moving down one spot on Bilan's list, 61-year-old Vasily Anisimov, whose construction and real estate fortune is estimated at between 3 and 4 billion, is doing well. This year, his wife Ekaterina (43) and son Nikolai (13) received the title of "bourgeois Kusnacht", the Zurich equivalent of the Geneva quarter of Cologny. The businessman himself, originally from Kazakhstan, is in no hurry to get a Swiss passport. Rumors concerning him come from both his homeland and Moscow. He is said to be interested in Moscow's Kristall distillery, which produces several types of popular vodkas, from Pure Crystal to Putinka. His daughters Angelina and Anna, who used to shine 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 recorded in sixth place in the list of the richest Swiss, formally, of course, cannot be considered “ours”. However, his ties 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, concurrently - the Honorary Consul of Russia in the canton of Vaud. Most recently, we published a lengthy interview with this outstanding person, so we will not repeat ourselves. Let us only note that even the compilers of the "rich list", who obviously do not have much love for the persons included in it, are rather sympathetic towards Paulsen and call him "one of the last adventurers on this planet."

One can be happy for Mr. Paulsen: his 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 by 1250 million over the past year and is between 2 and 3 billion francs. In addition to the main enterprise, Ferring, located in the town of Saint-Preux near Lausanne, this "humble chemist", as the Swiss call him, runs a number of other companies engaged in medical research.

We do not know how accurate Mr. Paulsen's capital estimates are, but our Swiss colleagues were definitely mistaken in 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 spirits and luxury products and is called by the Swiss "the uncrowned vodka king." According to Bilan, he has 2-3 billion francs. Interestingly, in the list of "The Richest Businessmen of Russia" of the Russian "Forbes" 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 lawsuit that the Russian government has been waging against Schifler's Spirits Intenational, which is part of the SPI group, since 2002 - it concerns the rights to Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodka brands. However, the magazine does not comment in any way on the information we found on the Oligarchy website. According to this source, Shifler lost those rights last summer. “The Court of Appeal in The Hague left the exclusive right to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya brands to Russia. According to RAPSI with reference to the message of the law firm Hoyng Monegier, which represented the interests of the Russian Federation in the Hague court, the complaint of the Dutch company Spirits International was rejected.

We found the same information on the Pravo.ru website, so it is probably true. But the Geneva-based businessman does not despair and finds time to relax on his 133.9 m yacht called Serena.

On the same level with Yuri Shefler is another resident of Geneva - Vyacheslav Cantor. His financial condition has not changed in the past year (2-3 billion francs), but the list of awards has been replenished with the French Legion of Honor for his contribution to the struggle 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 public work, holding a number of positions: President of the European Jewish Congress, Co-Chair of the European Council for Tolerance and Reconciliation, President of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, President of the Foundation "World Holocaust Forum", Chairman of the European Jewish Foundation.

This does not prevent him from doing business successfully: Kantor controls 84% of Acron and 2.7% of Uralkali, the world's two largest fertilizer producers.

In Geneva, his passion for horses and art is well known - lovers of the latter still remember 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 featured in an investigation by the Swiss Prosecutor's Office, which has frozen hundreds of millions of francs in accounts belonging to two Uzbek citizens suspected of money laundering. Both Uzbeks worked for Coca-Cola Uzbekistan, owned by Gulnara Karimova. But Bilan does not write anything about this. It is only said 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 already wrote about her achievements in the latter area). According to a Swiss magazine, she has just launched a perfume called "Mystérieuse" created with renowned French perfumer Bertrand Duchafour.

Gulnara's fortune is estimated at 900 million to a billion, it has not changed in 2012.

Finally, Vasily Shakhnovsky, the former president of the Yukos-Moscow company and the former owner of a 4.3% stake in the destroyed oil company, closes the list. You can read about how his relationship with Yukos ended in the book Prison and Freedom, published this year, written by Mikhail Khodorkovsky in collaboration with journalist Natalya Gevorkyan. Vasily Shakhnovsky, described in the book as an exemplary family man and teetotaler, lives in the canton of Vaud, enjoying the benefits of a flat tax - while you can.

He gets on 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 his former partners as possible.

Twelve immigrants from the USSR were on the list of the richest people in Switzerland December 3rd, 2013

The richest people in Switzerland, who are ranked annually by the economic magazine Bilan, are still not in poverty. 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 a 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 need to have a fortune of at least 100 million francs and be Swiss or permanently reside in the country (!!!. Auth.) ” .

So, immigrants from Russia and the countries of the former USSR, who were on the list of the 300 richest people in Switzerland:

Vekselberg

1 place. Victor Vekselberg (according to the migration service, 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 ranking). 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 beginning to bring satisfaction to their owner. This is especially true for the Swiss group OC Oerlikon, active in the polymers, mechanical engineering and solar panels market, which was not in the best shape three years ago. Since then, its market value has only risen, and now 48% of its shares represent the largest investment in the billionaire's portfolio.The second most important after OC Oerlikon is a stake (100% participation) in the Russian energy company IES-Holding, the largest non-public company in Russia in terms of 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 grew by one billion. His contribution to joint Franco-Russian projects was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.

A 61-year-old businessman of Russian origin with a Finnish passport, who has been living in Geneva for 12 years, founded Gunvor, an oil trading company, together with the Swede Torbjorn Tornkvist. Each of the partners 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 Continental Hockey League) and tennis in recent years has significantly expanded the scope of activities, taking part in companies active in the construction sector, petrochemicals, hospitality, aviation, insurance and food production.Volga Group, an investment group owned by Gennady Timchenko and registered in Luxembourg, is increasing its activity in the Russian market. Forbes magazine estimates the wealth of the billionaire at 13 billion francs, while 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 62-year-old Vasily Anisimov . The businessman's family (44-year-old Ekaterina Anisimova and 14-year-old son Nikolai) lives in the prestigious Zurichtmk quarter - next door to the "rock and roll queen" Tina Turner.

The owner of 3-4 billion francs made a fortune in the trade in 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 five times. While the names of the billionaire's wife and son are often mentioned in the 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.

Shefler

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 of Russia, occupies 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, according to the publication.

Pumpyansky Kolomoisky

The 5th and 6th places were shared by the owners of 2-3 billion francs - the Pumpyansky family and the new face of the Bilan rating, a native of Dnepropetrovsk Igor Kolomoisky . All of them also live in Geneva.

From the windows of the Swiss apartments of one of the richest Ukrainians (third on the Forbes list in 2012) offers a wonderful view of the Jet d "Eau fountain in Geneva, the compilers of the rating report. One of the founders of Ukraine's largest commercial bank, PrivatBank, controls a significant share of the Ukrainian air transportation market.According to Bilan, he also owns 10% of Central European Media (CME), which owns the 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, founder of the cosmetics company of the same name), is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Igor Kolomoisky is also known for his support for 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 Volodymyr Chertok, the newspaper reports.

The Pumpyansky family didn't mess around in 2013. The Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), chaired by Dmitry Pumpyansky, continues to expand internationally. Another business of Dmitry Pumpyansky - the Sinara group - signed last year a contract for the supply of 40 locomotives to Russian railways, and in the Arkhyz-1650 ski village, located near Sochi, a new hotel complex appeared this summer.
The son of Dmitry Pumpyansky, who graduated from the University of Geneva, has fully recovered from the plane crash he had last year, the publication reports. In July, Alexander founded the real estate company Segilo in Zurich.

Shefler

On the 7th place of the rating - Vyacheslav Kantor, also living in Geneva . According to Bilan, 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 depreciation of currencies and the depreciation of the market value of two world potash companies - Akron 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 position of chairman of the political council of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), whose president is the already mentioned Ronald Lauder. The Jerusalem Post included Viatcheslav Kantor in the list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world at number 19, up 15 places from last year.

Kulibaeva

Dinara Kulibayeva, described by Bilan as 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 the 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 Kulibayeva founded the Montes Alti Foundation, whose main goal is to promote education among the children and youth of the Canton of Geneva.In 2012, the Kulibaev family took 3rd place in our rating, 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 in Kazakhstan.

Yakubovsky

On the 9th place in the Russian-language part of the Bilan rating is another new person, a resident of the Obwalden semi-canton Dmitry Yakubovsky with 500-600 million francs. According to the economic magazine, the 50-year-old lawyer and father of four successfully sold his project to the financial and industrial group of 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 (Stanisław Jakubowski), president of the Zurich Volero volleyball club and leader 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 education, a liquidator of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he managed to visit a member of the Moscow government and a shareholder of the Yukos oil company. According to an economic magazine, he moved to Switzerland after two of his partners ended up in prison. Daughter Yulia Shakhnovskaya this year became the 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 rating. According to the publication, Ralif Safin, the former vice-president of the Lukoil oil company (and the father of the singer Alsou), is at the source of family wealth. According to our Swiss colleagues, his younger brother, 50-year-old Richat, lives in Geneva in a wonderful house bought in 2004 for 20 million francs. The Safins' professional interests include sugar trading and real estate. The family also owns a network of Russian filling stations Artoil, which this year also appeared on the Romanian market.

Karimova-Tillyaeva and Tillyaev

In 12th place are newcomers to the Bilan rating 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 for 43.45 million francs a manor with an area of 5812 square meters on the lake.

In the near future, publications in France, Germany, Italy and other countries will write about their compatriots who have added to the list of super-rich people in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. 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-Bloecker is currently the CEO of Ems-Chemie, a Swiss chemical and polymers company. In 2014, Ems-Chemie generated annual sales of approximately 1.972 million Swiss francs ($2 billion). In 2015, Martullo-Bloker entered politics and was elected National Councilor (photo-gazettereview.com).

#9 – Ivan Glasenberg ($3.8 billion)

Ivan Glasenberg became a Swiss citizen only 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 steadily declined over time as the economic climate has changed, but he still has a pretty fat wallet.

#8 - Rahel Blocker ($3.9 billion)

Rahel and Magdalena Blocker, her sister, currently hold a large stake in Ems-Chemie. However, Rachel does not 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 fortune is her legacy. Serono, her family's business, was sold for over $9 billion to Merck KGaA in 2007.

#6 - Thomas Schmidheini ($5.1 billion)

Thomas Schmidheini owns vineyards all over the world, but calls Klosters his home. In 1984, he inherited his father's Holcim company, which is still one of the world's leading cement companies to this day. Schmidheini retired in 2003 but still owns approximately 12% of the highly successful international company.

#5 – Hansjörg Wyss ($5.9 billion)

Hansjorg 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. Wyss worked in a variety of jobs in the textile and iron and steel industries after graduation, eventually meeting one of the founders of Synthes, a Swiss medical device manufacturer. By 1997, Wyss had founded Syntheses USA. The company was highly successful, and he stepped down as 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 have continued the business their father started, and they say they intend to pass the company on to their children in the future. The Liebherr Group currently employs over 40,000 people.

#3 – Gianluigi Aponte($8.2 billion)

The businessman started 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 a single ship that ferried goods between Europe and Africa. Today, the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has become almost a global superpower in terms of container shipping. In the late 1980s, MSC branches off into MSC Cruise, a successful cruise company. In 2014, Aponte stepped down as CEO of MSC, handing over the management 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, as a result of which Margarita inherited the business.

#1 – Ernesto Bertarelli– ($8.6 billion)

Ernesto Bertarelli studied business abroad, earning 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 now has 129 people with a fortune of more than 1 billion US dollars, while in 2014 there were 86 such people. This is reported by the Bilanz economic bulletin, which every year compiles a list of the richest residents of the Alpine Republic.

Where exactly do billionaires prefer to settle? First of all, these are the Cantons of Geneva - 25 people live there, and Zurich - 19 people, then the Canton of Vaud, with 14 billionaires. But big cities Not everyone loves it, for example, some very wealthy people prefer the picturesque landscapes of the Alps in the Cantons of Bern and Grisons - each of them has 10 billionaires. In compiling these statistics, it was taken into account that dollar billionaires Members of the same family may reside 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 the founder of Ikea, who lived in Switzerland for a long time, has now returned to Sweden, and his three sons, who are Swiss citizens, live in the Canton of Vaud. The fortune of the Kamprad family is estimated at 42.5 billion francs.

One of Europe's wealthiest villages has refused to accept any asylum seekers and instead voted to pay a fine of nearly $300,000.

Fear of possible sexual attacks on women and children, as well as violations of a peaceful way of life, led the super-wealthy high-altitude resort of Auberville-Lily in Switzerland to vote against accepting only 10 migrants during a referendum. The 2,200 inhabitants of the picturesque village, of whom 300 are millionaires, have decided to use all their financial muscles to reject the quota imposed by the central government.

One of the wealthiest villages in Europe, Auberville-Lily refuses to accept any asylum seekers. The Swiss government has instructed her to take in 10 migrants as part of a promise to take in a total of 50,000 people, at least 3,000 of whom came from Syria.

But the 2,200 wealthy residents of Auberville-Lily, 300 of whom are millionaires, held a referendum and voted against the government's quota, choosing instead to pay a nearly $300,000 fine.

Surrounded by lush green pastures, with a beautiful view of the snow-capped Alps, the twin villages of Auberville and Lily are the place to be on a box of chocolates.

Residents, who include a huge number of millionaires per capita, say they want to protect their quiet way of life and do not want any newcomers to spoil the quiet environment.

Some of the richest residents of Oberwil-Lily said they were willing to personally help pay the fine imposed by the Swiss government - about $150 per person. They will have to pay the same fine next year if they do not meet the quota.

But this decision polarized the local society, dividing opinions almost equally. While the majority of residents supported the decision, others were "embarrassed" by it. This mother of two says she was embarrassed by 'racism'.

The village is built up with Alpine style chalets and modern houses with glass railings making it one of the most attractive - and expensive - places to live in Switzerland. The fine will be paid from a fund of $7 million, which is formed from local taxes.

The roads are impeccably clean, the gardens are immaculate and, despite the distance of 16 kilometers to largest city the country of Zurich, traffic is almost non-existent. Residents, many of whom are pensioners, say they don't want migrants to ruin their pensions.

That is why the village will have to pay a fine to the Swiss government.

The 54-year-old mayor of Oberville-Lily, Andreas Glarner, said the reason for the vote was fear.

He added: “Yes, Syrian refugees need to be helped, and it is better to help them in camps closer to their homes. The money paid can be used to help them, but if we provide them with housing here, we will send the wrong signal. Others will also risk their lives crossing the ocean and paying smugglers."

52% of those who voted were against accepting refugees. The mayor says that Auberville-Lily is a quiet village, not equipped to accommodate 10 migrants. "It was a small victory for those of us who don't want refugees, because Auberville-Lily is not the place for them."

The population of Switzerland is 8 million people.

The number of asylum applications has recently been decreasing.

Switzerland hosts 50,000 asylum seekers. All of them are divided among 26 cantons, each settlement is allocated a quota of refugees, depending on the population.

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