Total wealth of top 500 richest romanians shrinks by half since crisis

The cumulative wealth of the 500 richest Romanians featuring in this year\'s Forbes Top amounts to 19.9 billion euros, down by 1.6 billion euros from last year\'s edition and from 40 billion euros in 2008. According to the most recent top published on Friday by Forbes Romania, businessman Ioan Niculae, the owner of agricultural group Interagro, leads Forbes 500 Richest Romanians list in 2013, with an estimated wealth of 1.1 billion euros. Ioan Niculae remains in fact the only Romanian billionaire in euro. Second comes Dan Grigore Adamescu, whose fortune is put at 950 million euros, while Romanian-Australian businessman Frank Timis and tennis player-turned-businessman Ion Tiriac are placed third on the list, with 850 million euros each. The average wealth of the Top-500 is worth 39 million euros and the minimum fortune of those having made it to the list is 5 million euros. Furthermore, 47 of the 500 billionaires included in Forbes Romania list this year are women. The list billionaires are aged 52 on average. The youngest is 30 and the oldest 82. The companies owned by the Top-500 employ a combined 199,177 personnel, down from over 216,000 in 2012. Most billionaires, 194 in number, are based in the capital city of Bucharest.