The richest Swiss Where do dollar billionaires prefer to live in Switzerland?
Meet the reader - this is the village of Meggen. Who is Meggen and how much did he pump from the author to get a mention in SeaBlog? And let me remind you that they really want, but so far such cities as New York, London and Mogadishu are not honored with this honor.
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So what did the community in the canton of Lucerne, located on the northern shore of Lake Vierwaldstadt in the very middle of Switzerland, do?
Beautiful places? Undoubtedly. Idyll, pastoral, safe harbor, temporary pocket, cozy nest, sleepy hollow, blue lagoon, humpback mountain, little switzerland. So, stop, Google! What the fuck is little switzerland? This is the real Switzerland! Not Saxon, not Czech, not Yakut (no, I'm serious, type in any other geographical name in combination with the word "Switzerland", official links will definitely appear!), But the most original fondue-chocolate Switzerland.
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Really a nice place, but how many of these are still in the country? So why Meggen? And you open the Forbes list. Find Switzerland in it. Soooo. 22 people on the list. Of these, three at once live in an unremarkable, albeit beautiful, village called Meggen.
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It is clear that there is Zurich or Geneva, where the nerve of the economy pulsates and the country's wealth accumulates. There is a chic for life, glamorous, luxurious Ticino - there is a concentration of all local and visiting nabobs. But all the same, three went to Meggen.
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The fact is that in the canton of Lucerne, the community of Meggen is the only one that enjoys tax breaks. And Switzerland, as you know, is a country in which a little lower taxes and a crowd of foreign oligarchs immediately organizes at the border, clutching their Hermes handbags with stolen billions in excited anticipation.
But Switzerland is not a gift. I am sure that the Russian and Ukrainian reader reading my reports on and, and in the case of Meggen, will experience some bewilderment and at the same time even wow-impulse pride in their native oligarchs.
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Where, the reader will ask, are the multi-storey palaces made of platinum? Where are the castles in the British style, fenced off from the greedy eyes of the laity with moats and walls with machine-gun towers?
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Why are there frail boats on the lake, instead of hundred-deck yachts, the size of Istanbul?
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Why was Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vettl, who bought a piece of land in a Swiss village for millions of euros, unable to build a tennis court and was forced to lick the balls of the village ecologists? Why do the oligarchs, enduring the humiliation and limitation of their luxury ambitions, dream of Switzerland with such passionate lust?
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Yes, because it is a country with reinforced concrete stability in politics and economy. Yes, in Russia you can easily drop a concrete slab on ecologists and buy, say, a whole forest in a Karelian nature reserve near a lake. But who will give the Russian oligarch guarantees that today you are looking at the Karelian lake through the panoramic windows of your mansion, and tomorrow not through the bars of the barracks?
Want an eloquent example? Reading about the famous inhabitants of Meggen, I came across one curious billionaire named Mark Rich, who unfortunately already left our world three years ago at the age of 74.
Who is Mark Rich? And Mark Rich is a shlymazl with a Jewish filling, born in Antwerp, Belgium and moved to the USA in his childhood. His dad made a fortune selling jute duffel bags during the Korean War, and our hero was one of the biggest financial investors in the world.
Including invested in Russia. He had a business with the Alpha group. Rich was so active in his business that the US government opened a dozen lawsuits against him on charges of money fraud and tax evasion. The prosecutor at the trial, future New York Mayor Rudolfo Giuliani, called Rich "the biggest financial criminal in US history."
So, our Rich, feeling his ass starting to burn, quickly rolled up his belongings and fled to Switzerland, where he had one of the branches of the company. He renounced American citizenship, received Spanish in addition to Israeli. He appointed a former Mossad agent as a personal bodyguard and lived happily in Meggen. In 1985, the Americans sent agents after Rich with an arrest warrant, but got turned down by the Swiss. The local Bundesrat recognized the hunt for Rich by the Americans as contrary to Swiss law. And that's it! Imagine, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud, the most powerful country in the world and the Sixth Fleet on the one hand, and little Switzerland on the other. And all because of one swindler.
And in 2001, before retiring, Bill Clinton, one of his last decrees, issued a pardon to Rich. Moreover, Clinton was pressured by such people as Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. Now it is clear that every oligarch flows wetly at the mention of the word "Switzerland".
And now they huddle, remembering Rich, in the narrow huts of Meggen and thank fate for the chance to meet a calm, well-fed old age.
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In addition to billionaires, a strong “upper middle class” settles here, capable of paying serious money even for Switzerland for real estate. A two-room apartment here costs from a million francs (almost a million euros), and a small house starts at two million.
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Apartments are rented with built-in kitchens.
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However, the municipality of Meggen has recently voiced its concerns about high property prices. "We do not want to turn into a village for the elderly millionaires, which has no future. We are interested in young families and require landlords to reduce the monthly rent. In addition, when building future apartment buildings, the developer will need to rent at least a third of the apartments in this house for a month an annuity of no more than 2,500 francs." This is Swiss socialism.
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Affordable apartment buildings
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The streets of Meggen
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Here sits the very evil municipality towards the oligarchs. On the ground floor there is a restaurant, a grocery supermarket and a couple of shops. On the second floor are the arbiters of the fate of financial sharks. Everything is quite modest, given the fact that a billionaire or a famous musician can stand in line for milk with you.
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Firwaldstetskoe (literally "lake of the four forest states") the lake is called the cradle of Switzerland. On its banks, in addition to Lucerne, there are the very first cantons of the state - Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden.
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The greatest depth of the lake is 214 meters. In summer, the water temperature reaches a comfortable 22 degrees. The water in the lake is safe to drink.
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In 1601, it was rather uncomfortable here. The annals preserved records of an earthquake and the subsequent 4-meter-high tsunami.
Mount Bürgenstock with the highest lift in Europe. Unfortunately, it is now under restoration and will be open only from July, otherwise I would have shown you gorgeous photos from there.
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This is such a village for millionaires. All for now. I will give the address of the village to the interested oligarchs in a personal in exchange for 100 tokens.
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Other posts from Switzerland. It's simple - click on the picture as in an iPhone.
WHY SCHAFFFHAUSEN IS NOT KOZELSK FOR YOU?
Wooden bridges that have stood for 700 years, the House of Government, unguarded by anyone, the saddest monument in the world and houses whose beams are soaked in bull's blood or donkey urine - these are the impressions of Lucerne, a kind of Catholic stronghold in general Protestant Switzerland. But not the only ones. Eurotour to "Magnificent Switzerland", organized by the company "Master of Travel", is remembered today as a bright fairy tale...
For the New Year - to the Government House!
To be honest, it was planned to start the article 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 true. Here, in 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 a company. Absolutely free, by the way.
The government building seems to do just fine without any metal detectors, security posts, or other mandatory security measures. And nothing - it has been standing for more than a hundred years. Our tourist group freely entered the hall - there were no obstacles from the police. If only because we did not find a single policeman there.
Canton, by the way, is preparing for a referendum. It will decide how to be a new university, which is planned to be built in the city. 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 assault on the Tuileries Palace on August 10, 1792. “To the Swiss, loyal and brave,” reads the inscription on it. “This is the saddest and most touching stone sculpture 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 casket opens simply: Lucerne, unlike its neighbors, where the reformers led by Calvin are oh so well remembered, remains mainly a Catholic canton. 72% of local residents refer to the Roman Church. The penetration of other religions is treated disapprovingly here.
Another attraction is the Kapellbrücke bridge over the Reuss river. The wooden structure, over 200 meters long, was built in 1365! And it has survived almost to the present day. In 1993, the bridge was badly damaged by fire: it is said that a young man threw a cigarette butt off the bridge, which hit the boat. A significant part of the bridge burned down, but was restored later. But the stone tower Wasserturm, which is located in the middle of the bridge, was not damaged. It used to be 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 great. They say that when it was put up for sale for $3 million, Michael Jackson was ready to shell out $25 million at once. However, he was refused: they say, historical monuments are not sold to foreigners. But now it belongs to the "native Swiss" Alexander Lebedev. To the very same, a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
Lucerne's ancient buildings in the Old Town flaunt their red and yellow beams. Beauty is here, in fact, to do with it, but not the main thing. It turns out that in the Middle Ages, the beams of houses were impregnated with an antiseptic - after all, epidemics raged in Europe. And the best antiseptics were then considered bull's blood and donkey urine. Now it's clear where the color comes from?
In Switzerland - and German guest workers ...
By the way, crossing the Reuss Bridge, we saw a real Swiss beggar. A beggar, imagine, in this well-fed and rich country. “Oh, poor thing ...” - out of habit, someone from the female component of the tour group started. However, to our surprise, our guide immediately cut off the “sympathizers”: “And there is nothing to feel sorry for him - this is 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 have been seeing this beggar here for a good 20 years.” Hearing about the size of unemployment benefits (recall, the Swiss franc is more expensive than the US dollar), many immediately ceased to feel 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, let alone dissatisfaction with them - people came to our country to work for us,” said Clara, a former Minsker and now a Swiss citizen. By the way, according to her, only local residents are engaged in street cleaning. "How else? Who loves their homeland more than they do? And cleaning the streets is the safety of citizens. And trusting her to someone else is not handy, ”explained the guide.
In Old Lucerne, almost every 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 way from Lucerne to Zurich, we ask Clara about life in Switzerland. “The main thing is that every Swiss should have a hobby. If you do not indicate a hobby in the employer's application form, you simply will not be hired: they will consider that you are a boring person who is not interested in anything. For example, I sing in the church choir. Every fifth Swiss participates in amateur performances. It’s hard to imagine a village without its folk ensemble,” says Clara.
We also touched on the topic of holidays. So, it turns out that the most important holiday in Switzerland is the driving of cows to alpine meadows. On this occasion cows are washed with shampoo (!), their eyelashes are dyed with mascara (!!) and their tails are curled (!!!). Well, then, of course, they are sent to the mountains - until autumn. Together with them, a staff of shepherds, milkers and cheese makers goes to the mountains. A bell is hung on each cow, and the heaviest bell is on the record holder for milk yield. It was hard to raise your head from the grass. If anyone is interested, the average milk yield in Switzerland from a cow is 30 liters of milk per day. The main record holder cow gives 60 liters of milk.
Of course, we talked about salaries and income. If the unemployment benefit is about 3 thousand francs, then the minimum wage is 3800. The average worker receives about 5800 francs. Well, when several Rostov teachers who traveled with us found out how much teachers earn in Switzerland, they grabbed their hearts: from 8 to 12 thousand francs! With a 20 hour work week.
"What do you want? We have the professions of a policeman and a teacher - the most respected, ”clara was surprised. Eh, we have too. But not always between the "most respected" and "well-paid" is an equal sign ...
Russian trace in the city of millionaires
And then there's 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 incalculable. 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 preserved superbly. Of the sights, we note the Fraumunster women's abbey with stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall - a native of Vitebsk painted 50 square meters in 1970.
By the way, Fraumunster has a rich history. Once upon a time there was a girls' school in which girls were prepared for high society. Then the Reformation broke out, and on the territory of Fraumunster they kept all kinds of good, including salt. Later, at the end of the 19th century, the abbey was turned into a stable for Napoleon's army. The Russian army came right behind the French - and quartered here for half a year. They say that a few months after the departure of the army, a birth boom broke out in Zurich. Still, the army corps numbered 20 thousand people, while the population of Zurich was only 21 thousand. So the Slavs here are not completely strangers ...
The Grossmünster is also impressive - the largest cathedral in 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, on the need to create a "United States of Europe". This event is commemorated by a commemorative plaque built right into the sidewalk. Thirty years before Churchill, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin "marked himself" in Zurich. However, this is modestly said - he stayed here for more than a year, as the plaque on the building reminds of: "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 house, which Vladimir Ilyich liked to visit, you can still drink coffee today. Which we gladly did.
Shopping Mile
It is in Zurich that the Alpina Masonic lodge (the main one in Switzerland), as well as the headquarters of the international football and hockey federations FIFA and IIHF, is still located.
The most famous street in Zurich is Vokzalnaya, also known as 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 on, only Zurich people know where. Tram in Switzerland is the main type public transport. Well, how did they live to see such a life: at a public stop there is an electronic scoreboard that indicates how many minutes the nearest trams and their numbers will arrive, and in the tram itself, the same electronic scoreboard tells you how many minutes you will get to this or that stop. And most importantly, 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.
1,650 trains depart daily 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 sessions with ordinary Swiss, put on opera performances, and New Year the largest Christmas tree in the country, decorated with Swarovski, is erected.
Not to mention the local university. All the same, Rosa Luxemburg, Roentgen, and Einstein studied there. Among its graduates are 27 Nobel laureates!
Waterfall. Waterfall!
Zurich is our penultimate "Swiss" stop. After the miracles of man-made, we went to admire the miracle of nature - the Rhine Falls. But it is impossible to describe it in words, and in the age of digital photography it is completely sinful. Unusual beauty, huge inner power, the elements, next to which it becomes uncomfortable ...
By the way, you have to pay to see the waterfall. If memory serves, then 3 francs. For some reason, I immediately remembered Ostap Bender with his idea to take money for the Failure in Pyatigorsk (“So that he doesn’t fail too much!”).
This was our last stop in Switzerland - then the path lay in, in Nuremberg. We stopped for the night in a small but cozy hotel in Germany. We went to a cafe. "Yes, it's almost communism!" - the first reaction after reading the menu. Yes perishing, compared with Swiss prices indeed all was very cheap. The wonderful country of Switzerland. If you have a Swiss salary.
Well, about Nuremberg, its proud status of the unrecognized capital of a non-existent country, separatism and red beer - in the next, final part of our European tour report.
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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 "queen of rock and roll" 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 a contract last year to supply 40 locomotives to Russian Railways, and a new hotel complex appeared this summer in the Arkhyz-1650 ski village, located near Sochi.
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.
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 Order of the 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.