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Durov tops Forbes' ranking of most impoverished Russian billionaires

It is noted that private investor Leonid Boguslavsky was ranked second as he saw his fortune plummet by $1.1 bln in a year’s time

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/. Forbes has ranked 13 of Russia’s most impoverished billionaires for 2022, with Telegram founder Pavel Durov taking the top spot.

The Telegram founder’s net worth decreased by $3.6 bln last year, putting him at $11.5 bln as of 2023, according to the magazine’s rankings. The estimated value of the messenger app itself was affected by declining share prices of its competitors, the publication said. Durov went from being Forbes’ third-richest Russian in 2022 to tenth this year.

Private investor Leonid Boguslavsky was ranked second as he saw his fortune plummet by $1.1 bln in a year’s time, Forbes said. Boguslavsky owns shares in 125 IT firms from European, American and Asian countries, with a number of them losing value last year, the magazine said. The investor holds a stake in the public company Datadog, whose capitalization dropped more than two-fold in a year, Forbes said.

Brothers Dmitry and Igor Bukhman were third in the rankings with their combined net worth having lost $1.1 bln in a year to $7 bln. The brothers’ main asset is games developer Playrix, according to the publication.

"For most Russian billionaires last year was a good year: 110 businessmen were included in Forbes’ new rankings against 88 in the previous year. <…> However, there are those whose fortunes decreased during the year. Out of the billionaires included in last year’s global Forbes rankings, such was the case for 13 people as they lost a total of $8.5 bln. It was not only sanctions that affected some of them, among the reasons," Forbes said.

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