Viktor Vekselberg

Net Worth: $ 5.9 billion

Primary Source: TNK-BP, SUAL-Holding , oil, metals
Age: 47
Marital Status: married, son and daughter

The Ukrainian-born oil baron studied at the Moscow Institute of Railroad Engineering in the 1970s. He went into business in 1988, trading personal computers; he teamed up with former classmate who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1989. He led Russia's first successful hostile takeover in 1994, when his Renova firm took control of the Vladimir Tractor Factory and installed a Russian-born Harvard M.B.A. to run it. Later he bought medium-size aluminum smelters and bauxite mines, united them into the $1 billion (sales) SUAL Holding in 1996; now selling a 25% stake to a foreign investment group. But Vekselberg made the bulk of his fortune when he teamed up with Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group to take over TNK, Russia's third-largest oil company, in 1997-1999. Last year TNK merged with the Russian operations of BP, giving Vekselberg and other TNK owners $6.35 billion in cash and BP stock. In February, he bought the Forbes Faberge collection for an undisclosed sum and returned it to Russia.