Held in Moscow for the first time, the Summer Fair is a smaller version of the giant luxury market, the Millionaire Fair.

“It’s definitely smaller, but the level of the participants is higher,” said Yelena Kudozova, the managing director of the Millionaire Fair. She listed carmakers McClaren and jewelry brand Piaget as examples.

Highlighting the exclusivity of the event, the fair was held at the Royal Bar yacht club on the bank of the Moscow River near Vodny Stadion metro station.

A bidder agreed to pay $1.68 million for a steak lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett in a charity auction completed on Friday night on eBay.

The winning bid in the 10th annual fund-raiser fell short of last year’s record $2.11 million, paid by Hong Kong-based investor Zhao Danyang.

As in recent years, the winner and up to seven friends may dine with the world’s second-richest person at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York.

The ranks of the world’s millionaires shrank at the fastest rate in 2008, with North America suffering the biggest wealth loss worldwide, according to a survey by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch & Co.

The global slump in property and equity markets last year cut the number of millionaires by 15 percent to 8.6 million, wiping out two years of increases, the firms said in their 13th annual World Wealth Report published today.

The value of the world’s millionaires’ assets slid 20 percent to $32.8 trillion, after a 9.4 percent increase the previous year, the survey said [...]

No. 1 on Forbes’ list, for the second year in a row, is Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

He is worth $30 billion, $5 billion less than last year, as a result of double-digit declines in real estate and stocks owned via the Crown Property Bureau, the state investment vehicle of which he is a trustee.

Rising political tensions have also destabilized the country, dampening even the important tourism sector.

June is the traditional start of the Japanese rainy season and you can be golden for showers with this solid gold mug that is so appropriate for getting through this Great Recession.

Worth $50,000, the item has been introduced as part of gold manufacturer Ginza Tanaka’s latest collection.

The firm has created the Summer Cool range with items that are believed to relieve the heat during the summer months and the mug features 850g of gold.

A newly divorced City banker is “giving away” his millionaire lifestyle complete with his home, car and boat in a competition that anyone can enter for £20.

Andrew Paul’s five-bedroom home in an acre of Kent countryside has been valued at £1.1million and has a designer kitchen, cinema and games rooms.

His new Aston Martin DBS is worth £160,000 and his Sealine 35 Sport motor boat £200,000.