#29 Andrei Skoch
Andrei Skoch (pictured in 2010) is Russia’s richest member of parliament (he has been in the Duma since 1999) and is one of three Metalloinvest billionaires.
Skoch owns 30%, number three on the mining billionaire list Alisher Usmanov holds 50% while Vasily Anisimov holds 20% of the steel and iron ore giant.
Skoch worked for Usmanov at Lebedinsky Mining while his childhood friend and fellow billionaire Lev Kvetnoi worked for Oskol Metal. Usmanov merged the two businesses to form Metalloinvest as a division of oil and gas giant Gazprom which was subsequently spun off.
Forbes reports Skoch’s stake is “technically owned in the name of his father Vladimir, a former factory worker.” Kvetnoi has sold out of Metalloinvest to go into banking and airports.
Metalloinvest announced had revenue of $7.2 billion in 2010 and claims the world’s richest iron ore deposits outside Australia. It is also developing copper mines and raised $3.1 billion in February for expansion.
Forbes estimates his net worth at $4.2 billion which places him 28th in Russia. He is only 46 year old and was barely in his 40s when he amassed his first billion. A resident of Moscow he is married with 7 children and a graduate of Moscow’s Institute of Physical Culture and Sports (like Kvetnoi). He sponsors an annual literary prize called Debut.
#30 Low Tuck Kwong
Low Tuck Kwong, worth $3.6 billion, is the wealthiest of Indonesia’s coal barons, but the Asian countries vast deposits have made billionaires of a few.
Fellow Indonesians Kiki Barki is worth $1.7 billion, Edwin Soeryadjaya $1.4 billion, Garibaldi Thohir $1.2 billion placing the latter at #84 on mining’s rich list, and Theodore Rachmat, #86 with $1.1 billion.
His Bayan Resources, listed in Indonesia in 2008 into the teeth of the global financial crisis, but has since then more than tripled.
The company has its roots in construction in the early 1970s and only ventured into contract coal mining in 1988. Thanks to aggressive growth it now dominates coal infrastructure, exports and mining in Indonesia centred in Kalimantan, the world’s second largest producer, and recently ventured into Australia.
Born in Singapore Low Tuck Kwong is 63 and is married with 2 children. He is outside the top 300 list of the world’s billionaires but hits number three in his Indonesia.
Forbes reports “he also has stakes in Singapore-listed Manhattan Resources and Singapore HealthPartners, which plans to open an integrated hospital, medical center and hotel there in 2013. Animal lover has a zoo in Borneo with dozens of animals including gibbons, sun bears, peacocks; rehabilitates orangutans for reintroduction into the wild.”
Low Tuck Kwong is 63 and is married with 2 children. He is outside the top 300 list of the world’s billionaires but hits number three in Indonesia.
