April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Russia’s 100 richest people lost 73 percent of their wealth last year as the economic crisis slashed the value of commodity and banking assets, Forbes Russia said.

“Not a single business leader in the Golden Hundred increased his fortune in the past year,” Forbes said in its annual list published today. Only 32 billionaires remain, compared with 110 in the previous year.

Mikhail Prokhorov, 43, with a fortune of $9.5 billion, topped the list, Forbes said. In April last year, Prokhorov sold 25 percent of OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s biggest mining company, to Oleg Deripaska, 41, for about $7 billion in cash and 14 percent of aluminum producer United Co. Rusal.

The value of assets held by the so-called Golden Hundred tumbled to $142 billion as of Feb. 13 from $522 billion a year earlier, according to the magazine. Those who “suffered least” sold interests before the financial crisis, which has wiped 38 percent from the Micex index and 30 percent from the value of the ruble against the dollar since Aug. 1, Forbes said.

Russia is sliding into its first recession since 1998, when the government defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt and oil slumped below $12 a barrel. The government has said the economy may contract 2.2 percent this year, after Urals crude dropped 64 percent to about $50 a barrel from a July 2008 peak and prices for metals exports fell.

“We’re all experiencing financial problems,” Alexander Lebedev, who owns a bank, shares in OAO Aeroflot and calls himself the world’s biggest potato farmer, told Bloomberg Television in an interview late yesterday. “All of us, without an exception.”

Estimate Disputed

Lebedev disputed Forbes’s estimate that his fortune shrank by $2.5 billion to $600 million, cutting his ranking to 63rd from 39th. “The market came back, so probably half a billion,” he said yesterday. “Where’s another $2 billion?”

Deripaska, the first of the billionaires to cede secured assets to banks, dropped to 10th from first place after losing an estimated $25 billion in the past year, the most on the list. Forbes put his fortune at $3.5 billion now. Deripaska downplayed the fortune Forbes ascribed to him in 2008.

OAO Lukoil Deputy Chief Executive Officer Leonid Fedun rose to eighth, with a fortune of $4.3 billion. His loss of $2.7 billion was the least among the country’s 20 richest men.

Billionaires Group

Boris Berezovsky, the self-exiled Kremlin opponent, was one of four men who closed out the group of 32 billionaires. Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, ranked two places below the billionaires with $900 million, remaining the only woman on the list.

The highest ranked of eight people joining the list for the first time was Yury Bortsov, 38, who with his father sold control of the OAO Lebedyansky juice maker to PepsiCo Inc. and Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. in a $1.4 billion sale last year. Forbes rated Bortsov 71st, with $500 million.

An additional 15 businessmen returned to the list from previous years, including Bortsov’s father, Nikolai, who ranked 57th with $600 million, the magazine said.

Of 23 of last year’s richest who failed to make the list this year, five were metals producers, five owned construction companies, four held stakes in automakers or machine builders, two owned gas producers and two were bankers.

“This approximately reflects the picture of destruction wrought by the Russian economic crisis,” Forbes said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Torrey Clark in Moscow at tclark8@bloomberg.net; Anastasia Ustinova in Moscow at austinova@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 17, 2009 07:45 EDT