Aurelia Butler

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s richest people added $152 billion to their wealth over the past year, buoyed by high prices for natural resources and rebounding from the huge loss of fortunes they experienced just after the Ukraine war began, Forbes Russia said.Russia has 110 official billionaires in the list, up 22 from last year, according to Forbes’ Russian edition, which said their total wealth increased to $505 billion from $353 billion when the 2022 list was announced.The list would have been longer had not five billionaires – DST Global founder Yuri Milner, Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky, Freedom Finance founder Timur Turlov, and JetBrains co-founders Sergei Dmitriev and Valentin Kipyatkov – renounced their Russian citizenship, Forbes said.”Last year’s rating results were also influenced by apocalyptic predictions about the Russian economy,” Forbes said, adding that the total wealth of Russia’s billionaires was $606 billion in 2021, before the war began.After President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, the West imposed what it casts as the most severe sanctions in modern history on Russia’s economy – and some of its richest people – in an attempt to punish Putin for the war.Putin said the West was trying to destroy Russia and has repeatedly touted the failure of Western sanctions to destroy the Russian economy, or even stop Western luxury goods – let alone basic parts – from ending up in Russia.Russia’s economy shrank 2.1% in 2022 under the pressure of Western sanctions, but it was able to sell oil, metals and other natural resources to global markets, in particular to China, India and the Middle East.The International Monetary Fund this month raised its forecast for Russian growth in 2023 to 0.7% from 0.3%, but lowered its 2024 forecast to 1.3% from 2.1%, saying it also expected labour shortages and the exodus of Western companies to harm the country’s economy.The price of Urals oil, the lifeblood of the Russian economy, averaged $76.09 per barrel in 2022, up from $69 in 2021. Fertiliser prices were also high last year.Andrei Melnichenko, who made a fortune in fertilisers, was listed as Russia’s richest man by Forbes with an estimated worth of $25.2 billion, more than double what he was estimated to be worth last year. Melnichenko could not be reached for immediate comment on the Forbes ranking.Vladimir Potanin, president and biggest shareholder of Nornickel, the world’s largest producer of palladium and refined nickel, was ranked as second richest in Russia with a fortune of $23.7 billion. Potanin could not immediately be reached for comment on the Forbes ranking.Vladimir Lisin, who controls steelmaker NLMK and was ranked last year as Russia’s richest man, was placed third in the Forbes Russia list with a fortune of $22.1 billion. Lisin could not be immediately reached for comment on the Forbes ranking.Many Russian billionaires cast Western sanctions as a clumsy, and even racist, tool. Building fortunes as the Soviet Union crumbled, a small group of tycoons known as the oligarchs persuaded the Kremlin under late President Boris Yeltsin to give them control over some of the biggest oil and metals companies in the world.The privatisation deals often propelled the tycoons into the league of the world’s super rich, earning them the enduring dislike of millions of impoverished Russians.But under Putin, some of the original oligarchs, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, were stripped of their assets, which eventually ended up under the sway of state companies often run by former spies.New Russian names in the Forbes list include billionaires who made their money in snacks, supermarkets, chemicals, building and pharmaceuticals, indicating that Russian domestic demand has remained strong despite the sanctions. More

OSLO (Reuters) -Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s largest investors, said on Saturday it will vote against a resolution calling on British oil major BP (NYSE:BP) to adopt tougher greenhouse gas targets.While BP already aims to reduce emissions, the motion filed by activist group Follow This ahead of an April 27 shareholder vote calls on the company to align with the Paris climate deal’s goal to limit global warming.Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which operates the Norwegian fund, said last year that it plans to take a tougher line on companies that do not adopt credible climate plans.It did not give a reason for rejecting the motion. But the fund has said in the past that while it sometimes backs environmental, social and governance (ESG) proposals put forward by activist groups, it carefully judges each case on its merits.Follow This in an emailed statement said NBIM as a major investor should show leadership on climate issues.”NBIM failed the first real test of its new climate voting policy,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal wrote.The Norwegian fund, itself built on oil and gas revenue, owned 2.73% of BP’s shares worth some $2.8 billion at the end of 2022.BP’s board has recommended that shareholders vote against the resolution saying it was “unclear” what it wanted the company to do.Investor advisers ISS and Glass Lewis also recommended BP shareholders oppose the resolution, while Britain’s Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) asked investors to back it.In February BP rowed back on plans to slash its 2019 oil and gas output levels by 40% by 2030, and now it envisages a 25% cut, angering climate activists. More

In the week that UK food price inflation hit its highest level in more than 45 years, the detailed official statistics show that if British consumers want to look after the pounds in their pockets, they should eat sweet potato. Office for National Statistics data shows prices of the orange tuber rose only 2 per cent in the year to March, exactly in line with the Bank of England’s inflation target. Overall food prices, by contrast, jumped 19.2 per cent.The reasonable cost of sweet potatoes — the only item the ONS measures in its “other tubers and products of tuber vegetables” category — will do very little to help households with the cost of living, however. Families in the UK, on average, dish out only £0.30 on them in every £1,000 they spend. Food in general accounts for £107.The soaring prices across almost all food categories are both changing household behaviour and worrying policymakers. Food categories dominate the list of items in the ONS consumer inflation measure where prices are rising rapidly.

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Olive oil prices rose 49 per cent in the year to March; sugar was up 32 per cent; and milk, cheese and other dairy products all had inflation rates over 30 per cent. The BoE knows it has no hope of meeting its inflation target until food price inflation drops considerably.For their part, households have reacted to the soaring price of food by shopping in cheaper supermarkets, buying less and seeking to trade down to less expensive items. In the latest retail sales figures, the volume of goods bought in non-specialised food stores, which includes supermarkets, fell 4.4 per cent in the year to March. This drop came even as spending in these stores rose 8.9 per cent. Spending more and getting less has been the reality for most UK households. Esme Harwood, a director at Barclaycard, said research by the payments company in March found almost all shoppers were concerned about food price inflation and more than six in 10 were looking for ways to economise, either by cutting out luxuries, finding special offers or seeking to avoid waste. “The below-inflation rise in grocery spending shows that Brits are still trying their hardest to shave money off their weekly shop,” she said. Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said the main way households were reacting was by “buying cheaper goods”. Data collected by the market research group showed spending on lower cost own-label products up 16.5 per cent in the year to March, while spending on branded goods rose only 7 per cent. The concern among policymakers about food inflation is that shoppers know the prices of everyday items and notice when they rise. This threatens to exaggerate perceptions of overall price increases and make people more militant about seeking pay rises, thereby baking in higher inflation.

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UK policymakers are not alone in this concern because food inflation has been high in many advanced economies. The food inflation rate for the EU as a whole was identical to that of the UK in March at 19.2 per cent and was higher for Portugal, Sweden and Germany, among others. The rate in Hungary hit 44.8 per cent in March. Retailers insist food inflation represents the delayed effect of energy and commodity price rises during the past year along with poor harvests and a period of sterling weakness, suggesting the crisis for households might soon end.

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Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, a trade body, said food price inflation was “likely to slow in the coming months as we enter the UK growing season”. High food prices did not reflect greed on the part of large supermarkets, Dickinson insisted. “Retailers remain committed to helping their customers and keeping prices as low as possible,” she said. More