Lakshmi Mittal loses half his £40bn fortune

Even multi-billionaires are feeling the pinch from the great financial meltdown. According to today's London Evening Standard, the biggest single loser is steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal (pictured), who, according to US magazine Forbes is – or was - the fourth richest man on the planet. He is said to have lost £20 billion, exactly half his reputed personal wealth.

Mittal, who owns two homes in Kensington, has seen the value of the shares he and his family hold crash from £33.24 billion in June this year to £11.82 billion. Over the last four months he has lost the equivalent of nearly £180 million a day or some £7 million an hour. The 58-year-old is head of the Arcelor Mittal steel empire, on the board at Goldman Sachs, and has a 20 per cent stake in Queens Park Rangers Football Club (no new players this year it would seem). As well as seeing the value of his Arcelor shares plummet, Mittal has made losses on his investment in RAB Capital, the hedge fund group which took a massive bet on the recovery of Northern Rock before it collapsed and was nationalised.

Helpfully, the Standard has put together a list of the top 10 victims of the financial crisis, although none of them come close to Mittal. In the number two and three spots respectively are mining tycoon Vladimir Kim, of Kazakhmys, and Anil Agarwal, of Vedanta Resources. Both firms are recent listings on the London Stock Exchange but have seen their value tumble since the spring on the back of falling metal prices.

At number four is Newcastle United FC and Lillywhites owner Mike Ashley, who has seen the value of his stake in Sports Direct, the retail giant he set up and floated on the London market, dive from £1.17 billion in February last year to just £168 million today, a loss of £1 billion.

Tottenham Hotspur investor Joe Lewis and Conservative Party treasurer Michael Spencer also feature. Lewis lost £602 million after the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns. Another billionaire who has cause to be down in the dumps is UK property magnate Robert Tchenguiz. He is said to be facing losses of up to £1 billion after borrowing heavily from Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

Even the Russian oligarchs are said to be in trouble. Kirill Pisarev, the chairman of London listed property developer PIK and owner of a £15 million apartment in Knightsbridge, has made a paper loss of more than $2 billion since the credit crunch started. His business partner Yuri Zhukov is thought to have lost a similar amount.

Aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska, who owns a £20 million Belgravia house and has much of his wealth tied up in the collapsing Moscow property market, is also said to be making cutbacks. One report suggests he sacked all his staff from his Moscow estate last week and replaced them with cheaper labour from a provincial town. And Alexander Lebedev, part owner of Aeroflot and organiser of an annual Hampton Court charity ball, has admitted that he has lost two-thirds of his £1.7 billion fortune.