Word: oligarchs
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Taste is a disappearing commodity. Today a Russian oligarch or a Park Avenue hedge-fund manager might still have the bucks to buy Saint Laurent's Matisse, but the real investment is in something far scarcer: Saint Laurent's eye, his love of beauty and mannerisms and the exotic dream world within which he lived. As Christie's Giovanna Bertazzoni said of the viewing, which was open to the public, "it gives ordinary people the experience of what it might be like to actually own works of this quality." Perhaps the greatest and last gesture of good taste came from...
What can you get for a single unit of Britain's poor, battered currency? Not much - apart from power, influence and an entrée into the highest echelons of the British establishment. These are the potential byproducts of an agreement reached on Jan. 21 by Russian oligarch and politician Alexander Lebedev to buy London's largest newspaper, the Evening Standard, from its current owners Associated Newspapers for the nominal fee of one pound sterling...
...been a member of a foreign security service" meant there should be an inquiry into the sale. "I think it's one more example that we are no more a serious nation that we allow a serious paper to be taken over in our capital by a Russian oligarch," harrumphed Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, an octogenarian former newspaper editor. (See pictures of the fashions of Russian Czars...
...Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has the power to intervene in the deal but has indicated that he does not intend to do so. Lord Mandelson's social interaction with another oligarch, metals magnate Oleg Deripaska, attracted negative press commentary in the fall; the minister may prefer to keep a distance from the dealings of rich Russians. But Lebedev, still only 49, is no ordinary oligarch. He even rejects the label with its connotations of bling-bling lifestyle and financial secrecy, and in September confided to the Daily Telegraph that the economic slump had shrunk his fortune by two thirds...
...awakened interest in Mandelson's dealings with Deripaska, a controversial figure whose multi-entry visa to the U.S. was revoked by the State Department in 2006. Mandelson and Deripaska have known each other for several years. Although invited to Corfu by his close friend Rothschild, Mandelson stayed on the oligarch's yacht because Rothschild's villa was full. In his E.U. post, Mandelson was theoretically in a position to assist the Russian's business interests. He angrily denied any impropriety in an interview with the BBC. "There has been innuendo in the newspapers that I gave favors or I gave...