Business oligarch

An oligarch ( from Greek: ὀλίγοι oligoi = " few " and ἄρχων archon = " ruler, leader ") is a business tycoon or Tycoon, which exerts its wealth of a country or a region largely informal power. The term expresses how the word origin of oligarchy it implies, from that the person " one of the few rulers " of the country is and how great the influence of his wealth may be, if necessary, on its policy.

In the U.S. the term was applied to people during the economic boom in the late 19th and early 20th century, who set their own rules in a region if there was a lack there of representatives of the general law, for example in some cities of the West or in Alaska. After some time, the term was uncommon.

Today is known as economic oligarchs generally some rapidly to wealth came businessmen from the former republics of the Soviet Union, mostly from Russia and Ukraine. During the 1990s, referred to in those small groups of people as oligarchs who had become extremely wealthy and thus began to control the mass media and exert political influence.

The Russian oligarchs

The Russian oligarchs are entrepreneurs who started their business during Gorbachev's period of market liberalization. It is generally believed that it has been the collapse of the Soviet Union two generations of economic oligarchs gitt in Russia: The Yeltsin oligarchs and Putin - oligarchs.

Oligarchs of the Yeltsin era

Towards the end of the Soviet era, during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, goods smuggled some Russian businessmen such as personal computers and jeans into the country and sold them at a high profit on the black market. In the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin's tenure, during Russia's transition to a market economy, the oligarchs appeared on the scene: well-connected entrepreneurs who started with almost nothing and became rich through market activities and through their connections with the corrupt, albeit democratically elected Russian government.

The oligarchs became extremely unpopular in the Russian public and are generally considered to be the cause of the economic chaos that reigned after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Guardian described the oligarchs as " in average Russians about as unpopular as someone who burns for pleasure on the sidewalk in front of an orphanage 50 - pound notes ."

During the Yeltsin presidency, the oligarchs gained increasing influence in politics and played a major role in the financing of Yeltsin's re-election in 1996. With the help of insider knowledge about the financial decisions of the government, it was the oligarchs easily, their property continues to increase. However, the Russian financial crisis of 1998 hit some of the oligarchs hard, and those whose wealth was based on banking, lost the greater part of it.

The most influential and most publicly -present oligarchs of the Yeltsin era are Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Gusinsky, Vitaly Malkin and Vladimir Potanin. Of them only Potanin and Malkin have " salvaged " in the Putin era. The others were removed from power, according to a report by The Guardian by the government.

Oligarchs of the Putin era

During the reign of Vladimir Putin other oligarchs because of illicit activities, such as violations of tax law, have come under fire. However, it is often assumed that the allegations were politically motivated and the business magnates have lost the favor of the government. Vladimir Gusinsky ( Media-Most ) and Boris Berezovsky escaped justice by leaving Russia. The most famous of them, Mikhail Khodorkovsky ( Yukos ), was arrested in October 2003 and sentenced to nine years in prison.

The billionaire, philanthropist and art patron Alexander Lebedev criticized the oligarchs, "I think material wealth for them is a very emotional and mental thing. You give a lot of their money for personal consumption from " He describes it as a group of uncultured uncultured ". , You do not read books. You do not have time. You go to any shows. They think the only way to impress others, either by buying a yacht. "Besides, Lebedev notes that the oligarchs are uninterested in social injustices. Some of them have now as a result of the global economic and credit crisis of 2008, only a few hundred million dollars left, and had thus arrived in the slums by the standards of the super rich.

Ivan Rybkin, former Speaker of the State Duma, claimed President Vladimir Putin had billionaire and " the biggest oligarch in Russia". Russian officials disagreed Rybkin view and said that he had led no evidence for his statement. Putin himself denies the same.

Some observers believe that Putin has built a state-run economy to dismantle the empires of the oligarchs of the Yeltsin era. The Texas business intelligence company STRATFOR was of this view. To this end, Putin has positioned some of the most trusted and most useful oligarchs directly among themselves in the Kremlin.

Among the most important of the oligarchs Putin era include Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Prokhorov and Vladimir Potanin and still Vitaly Malkin, and Mikhail Fridman.

Global recession and credit crisis of 2008

Since July 2008, the richest 25 Russians, taken together lost $ 230 billion according to information provided by Bloomberg LP. The descent of the oligarchs is closely linked to the slump in the Russian stock market, where the RTS index as a result of capital flight to the Caucasus conflict in 2008, fell by 71 %.

Billionaires in Russia and Ukraine were particularly hard hit by creditors to supplement their budgets, demanding the repayment of balloon loans. Many oligarchs in Russian banks borrowed heavily, including shares bought and used this as collateral to obtain further loans from Western banks.

One of the first to be hit by the global downturn was Oleg Deripaska, at that time the richest man in Russia, whose net assets amounted to $ 28 billion in March 2008. As Deripaska borrowed money from western banks, which he provided protection with its corporate holdings, forced him to the case of shares to sell shares to pay margin calls.

The oligarchs Ukraine

The Ukrainian oligarchs are in the public eye came mainly on the occasion of the 2012 European Football Championship: Rinat Akhmetov as the owner of the club Shakhtar Donetsk in Donetsk and as an installer of the Arena, Alexander Yaroslavsky, who in " King of Kharkiv ", in a similar function Metalist Kharkiv and his Metalist stadium, and the brothers Hryhorij Surkis Ihor Surkis and of which the former ( FFU) also acts as President of the Ukrainian Football Federation, while his younger brother is the president of the Ukrainian football club Dynamo Kiev in the capital Kiev. The oligarchs of eastern Ukraine tend to politically "blue", russia became sinterized party of former President Viktor Yanukovych, those of the Western Ukraine 's pro-Western " orange " side of his predecessor Yushchenko.