Tinkoff Saxo in trouble?

Oleg Tinkov, millionaire
Talking of former glories, many might still refer to Oleg Tinkov as a “billionaire”. He’s probably not any more. How do you define billionaire anyway? Either way he’s lost a lot of money of late. The value of his Tinkoff Credit Systems credit card business has fallen so much the chart looks less like a downhill stage of the Giro and more like the profile of a heli-ski trip. Interest rates were raised from 10 to 17% the other day in Russia. To keep it short the interest rate is the price of money and for a credit card company it means the price of their raw material soared all of a sudden. The good news is that he did sell a lot of the shares at a high price and, like any wealthy Russian, presumably retains most of his wealth outside of Russia. But the bad news is that he still owns about 50% of TCS meaning his net worth has fallen. The team’s in no danger because if he’s no longer a billionaire, he’s still worth hundreds of millions.