What kind of world will we live in without Russian billionaires?

But more importantly how scared for his life was that bank employee to make that call??? Can you imagine? We'd go into hiding. Actually, we want to go into hiding after writing this item.

Wealth Bulletin: Deutsche Bank has hit a second Russian businessmen in less than a month with a billion-dollar margin call as some of the country’s richest men continue to struggle with the double problem of falling share prices and large bank debts.

Alexander Zanadvorov, the owner of Russian supermarket chain Seventh Continent, which is partly owned by US buyout firm TPG, faces having to hand over a 74.8% holding in the company to Deutsche Bank and Nordea Bank Finland after being served with a $1bn (€786m) margin call by the banks.

Seventh Continent shares have lost half their value this year, nearly all of which has come in the last month as the Russian stock markets collapsed in the wake of the global financial crisis.

...Several prominent Russian billionaires have faced margin calls in the last two months, including the country’s richest man Oleg Deripaska, who had to give up a holding in a Canadian autoparts company as well as being forced to borrow from the government to refinance loans collateralised against his holding in aluminium giant RusAl.