Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Mikhail Prokhorov jumped to the top of Russia’s rich list after his fortune shrank less than those of his fellow billionaires. Oleg Deripaska tumbled from first to eighth after losing $35 billion, Finans magazine said.

Prokhorov was worth $14.1 billion at the end of last year, $200 million more than Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, who retained the runner-up slot in the sixth-annual ranking by Finans, a Russian rival to Forbes.

Deripaska, the majority shareholder of aluminum producer United Co. Rusal, was the first of Russia’s billionaires to cede assets to banks last year as credit markets seized up and the country was pushed to the brink of recession after a decade of uninterrupted growth.

The number of dollar billionaires more than halved to 49 from 101 as asset prices plunged, Finans said. The combined fortunes of the richest 49 Russians slid 69 percent to $151 billion, tracking the 67 percent decline in the benchmark Micex Index of 30 stocks as the global slowdown hobbled demand for energy and metals exports.

Prokhorov, 43, outstripped Vladimir Potanin, 48, for the first time as the former partners unwound their holdings. Prokhorov sold a 25 percent stake in OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the country’s biggest metals producer, to Deripaska in April for as much as $8 billion in cash and 14 percent of Rusal. Potanin slid to seventh from sixth with $5 billion, less than a quarter of his estimated wealth last year.

Commodity Slump, Debt

Tumbling commodity prices and a collapsing ruble made foreign-currency debts more expensive to service and harder to roll over. Business leaders who helped foreign corporate debt in the past three years are now putting up chunks of their empires as collateral for government support to avoid losing shares to foreign creditors.

Deripaska, 41, downplayed his wealth in previous years as he built up debt to expand his holdings. In October he was forced to cede stakes in auto-parts maker Magna International Inc. in Canada and German builder Hochtief AG to western banks after they lost more than half of their market value. Rusal held on to its Norilsk Nickel stake after a $4.5 billion bailout loan from state development bank VEB.

Rusal’s stake in Norilsk now has a market value of about $3 billion, based on the share price, compared with $13 billion when it bought the stock in April.

Abramovich, Alekperov

Abramovich, who divorced his wife Irina in 2007 and is now model Dasha Zhukova’s partner, was voted “the most interesting billionaire” by 3,900 Finans readers, with 49 percent of the vote. Fellow bachelor Prokhorov, who was arrested on pimping charges in the French ski resort of Courcheval in 2007 before being cleared, was second with 12 percent, followed by Potanin with 9.1 percent and Deripaska with 7 percent.

Oil billionaires held six of the top 20 slots, compared with five last year. Vagit Alekperov, chief executive officer and shareholder of OAO Lukoil, rose to fourth from 11th last year, even as his fortune slid 44 percent to $7.6 billion. Mikhail Fridman, one of BP Plc’s Russian partners in TNK-BP, fell to sixth, from fourth last year, with $6.1 billion.

The price of Urals crude, Russia’s chief export earner, fell 54 percent last year, hitting a record high of $142.50 a barrel in August before dropping to a 4 1/2 year low of $32.34 in December. The benchmark blend has traded at an average of about $44 a barrel since the start of the year

Yelena Baturina, wife of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, remained the only woman on the list, with $1 billion, thanks to her investment in building materials.

Developers and builders who entered the billionaire list on the back of the country’s construction boom, including Mirax Group founder Sergei Polonsky, led the exodus this year. Troika Dialog Chairman Ruben Vardanian, Sibir Energy Plc’s Chalva Tchigirinski and OAO Polymetal shareholder Alexander Mamut were among 51 Russians who lost their billionaire status.

Excluded from consideration this year for the first time are people who live abroad and don’t own major assets in Russia, including Boris Berezovsky and Leonid Nevzlin, Finans said.

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

Last Updated: February 16, 2009 04:43 EST