Russian businessman and judo partner of President Vladimir Putin, Arkady Rotenberg, holds first place in this year's ranking of “the kings of state orders,” published by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine Thursday.
Rotenberg has featured in the ranking every year since it was first published five years ago. Last year his construction company StroiGazMontazh received state orders worth 555 billion rubles ($7.3 billion), according to Forbes.
Rotenberg is followed on the ranking by billionaire Leonid Mikhelson — the main owner of Russia's second-largest gas producer Novatek. Forbes estimated the value of state orders received by Mikhelson's company last year at 344.3 billion rubles ($4.5 billion).
The owner of Volga Group, Gennady Timchenko, was ranked third, receiving orders from the state worth 161 billion rubles ($2.1 billion) last year.
Fourth place was occupied by a major shareholder of the petrochemical company Sibur — Kirill Shamalov. Shamalov — Putin's-son-in law, according to some media reports — makes his first appearance in the ranking. Forbes estimates the value of state orders received by his company at 149 billion rubles ($1.9 billion).
Other businessmen that made it to the ranking's top spots are Arkady Rotenberg's son Igor, whose assets include drilling company Gazprom Bureniye and power generation company TEK Mosenergo; Dmitry Pumpyansky, owner of pipemaker TMK; Aras Agalarov, the president of Crocus Group; Alexei Mordashov, principal shareholder of steel manufacturer Severstal and owner of power engineering holding Silovye Mashiny; Ivan Shabalov, owner of pipe producer TIT and Alexander Lavlentsev, owner of construction company ARKS.
In total, these companies received state orders worth more than 1 trillion rubles ($13 billion) last year, Forbes reported.
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