Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Net Worth: $505 million

Age: 61

Marital status: Married, one son and one daughter

Last year: $2.1 billion

Industry: Automobile industry

Credit has dried up. Solvency has plunged. In general, 2009 will go down as a bitterly disappointing year for Tariel Vasadze. Until the crisis the automobile industry was growing at an extraordinary speed, which meant that the shares of the owner of UkrAVTO doubled in value last year. But this year they have already dropped fourfold. In April, Vasadze voiced what he couldn’t have imagined even in his worst nightmares – the company would have to undergo an unprecedented reduction in staff. “We need to produce the number of cars that are needed by the market,” he said. “If we can’t produce 200,000 vehicles like we used to, then we need to produce at least 90,000. The number of workers needs to be cut accordingly.” Vasadze is making a bet on cheap imports. In May, his company received the official status as distributor for KIA automobiles in Ukraine. Until then, Petr Poroshenko, who owns Bohdan, had sold the Korean cars for 12 years. A crisis is the best time for redistribution of the market. Speaking about AvtoZAZ’s current production opportunities, Vasadze said, “If the situation changes a little for the better, we hope that we can produce up to 100,000 automobiles. But 80,000 is a more realistic figure.”