#31 Anil Agarwal
Anil Agarwal‘s fortunes declined over the past year thanks to a 40% slump in the share price of his London-listed Vedanta Resources. Agarwal is now worth $3.5 billion, almost half his net worth a year ago.
Agarwal (pictured in 2010) started out as a scrap metal trader and Vedanta boast $11.4 billion in annual revenues and is two-thirds through a $19 billion capex plan. In 2004 Vedanta bought Konkola Copper in Zambia and three years late control of Sesa Goa, India’s foremost iron ore miner.
The aluminum producer and diversified miner has operations India, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Liberia, Ireland and Australia. It is the world’s number on lead-zinc producer and also mines silver, copper and iron ore.
Forbes reports the “Indian government stopped [the] company from mining bauxite in eastern India following protests over its mining practices.” Agarwal has now successfully expanded into oil after buying a stake in India’s largest onshore oilfield which his brother Navin is running.
Forbes also reports “his much-touted Vedanta University, to which he pledged $1 billion, is stalled owing to problems related to land acquisition.” Agarwal is 58 and lives London. He is married and the father of two kids.
#32 Andrei Guriev
Andrei Guriev made $3.5 billion from fertilizer through his 70%-ownership of Fosagro the globe’s number two phosphorous fertilizer producer.
Guriev, who is also a Russian senator representing Murmansk, could have been higher on the list, but plans to merge Fosagro with Silvnit, the Russian potash giant fell through.
Silvnit last year merged with Uralkali to create the world’s second largest potash miner, adding billions to the fortunes of Dmitry Rybolovlev, Alexander Nesis, Anatoly Skurov, Zelimkhan Mutsoev and Anatoly Lomakin.
Forbes reports “Guriev, a former Moscow communist committee leader, became an avid capitalist in the 1990s working with Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Menatep Group.He eventually chaired its subsidiary Apatit. During the prosecution of former billionaire Khodorkovsky, who has been in jail for years, Guriev led a management buyout of Apatit and acquired control.”
Guriev is 52, lives in Moscow and is married with two children.
#33 Vladimir Kim
Vladimir Kim – net worth $3.5 billion – is chairman of copper miner Kazakhmys and has seen shares in the London-listed company slide 32% over the past year.
Kim made headlines in October 2010 when in one go, he sold $1.3 billion worth of stock to Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund. When he became involved with Kazakhmys (then called ZhezkazganTsvetMet) during the 1990s the Soviet era miner was in complete disarray and debt laden.
Today it produces 90% of Kazakhstan’s copper and in 2010 mined 33 million tonnes of the red metal, significant quantities of zinc, 13 million ounces of silver and some gold. Revenues last year came to $3.6 billion and profits a healthy $1.2 billion. Kazakhmys also listed in Hong Kong last year.
Kim, 51, is of Korean descent and was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He graduated from the city’s Architectural Institute in 1982 and is married with three children. He is number 314 on the Forbes list of billionaires and Kazakhstan’s richest man.
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