Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian businessman born in Armenia, has a net worth of $4.3 billion.
He was born in Armenia in 1966 and is the proprietor of the real estate company Tashir Group.
During the financial crisis, Karapetyan amassed the majority of his wealth and has since made additional acquisitions.
He has been residing in Kaluga, near Moscow, since the 1990s, where his Tashir Group has grown into a massive conglomerate with 24 shopping centers, seven office centers, and seven hotels. Karapetyan’s companies are present in 25 regions of Russia, while he is alleged to have secured construction and tourism contracts with officials in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
With a fortune of $3.8 billion, Karapetyan has become the wealthiest ethnic Armenian in the world as of March 2013.
Kirk Kerkorian, an Armenian American businessman, was the previous owner of the title.