You're reading: #34 Richest: Petro Poroshenko, 45

$382 million Married with four sons Interests: confectionary business, shipping, media

Petro Poroshenko is a businessman who is crisis-resistant.

After all, no matter how tough life will get, people will always eat sweets, drink beer and ride Bohdan minibuses – yellow vehicles, better known as marshrutki.

In addition to having a diversified portfolio, Poroshenko has managed to avoid any potential conflicts with the new government.

(A Kyiv Post reporter recently saw him leaving the office of Serhiy Lyovochkin, the presidential administration chief.)

Poroshenko’s name is even occasionally mentioned as a possible successor to Sergiy Tigipko, if the latter is ever made a scapegoat for the failure of economic reforms.

Poroshenko owns one of Ukraine’s most balanced TV channels – Channel 5. Ukraine’s Customs Service this year charged one of Poroshenko’s companies with violating the ban on grain exports.

Ironically, the exporter turned out to be the company behind Channel 5 TV.

As a result, people nicknamed his television company “The First Grain Channel,” parodying “The First Information Channel,” its official slogan.

Poroshenko in December announced he would purchase a 60 percent stake in the Sevastopol-based Sevmorzavod – a shipyard servicing the Black Sea Fleet, which in April was granted a 25-year extension of the naval base on the Crimean peninsula.

The deal gives a more literal meaning to Poroshenko’s ability to keep his business empire afloat.