Who wants to be a billionaire? More than 40 impoverished Chinese tycoons who have lost their platinum status thanks to the world’s financial turmoil. As we have recently reported, some russian and Indian billionaires have been losing money since the beginning of the financial crisis, and, according to the Guardian, they are not alone !

There were 66 Chinese billionaires in 2007 but there are just 24 now due to the plunging Chinese stock market. The combined worth of the country’s 400 richest people has plummeted by 40% to a mere $173 billion since last year, new research has shown, and the top 40 lost 57% of their wealth according to Forbes magazine.

« Property magnates dominated 2007’s list, but the sales have slumped this year, wiping out 98% of Cheung Chung Kiu’s fortune. Last year, the boss of developer CC Land, stood at number 26. Now he is outside the top 400. »

Those who lost their money are hopeful that the tide will turn and they will be back up again soon. After all two years ago, there were only 15 Chinese billionaires. Source Luxist / The Guardian

aSmallWorld is an online social network service similar to Facebook. Also called “Snobster” by critics, it is an exclusive invitation-only network with roughly 250,000 members.

Founded in 2004 by by Swedish banker and globetrotter Erik Wachtmeister, the network is mainly about lifestyle, society, celebrities: Naomi Campbell, Ivanka Trump, Quentin Tarantino, Paris Hilton, Tiger Woods, Prince Emanuele Filiberto Di Savoia and James Blunt are among the members.

SmallWorld shares many features with other social network services, such as profiles, an event calendar, private messaging and allows users to list multiple cities as their location of residence. Members can also buy, and sell items (Bugatti Veyron, Caviar, etc…) using aSmallWorld’s private forums or even rent property or find a flatmate.

People must be invited to join. Only certain members of the club have the privilege to invite other members and five members must approve your existence before you’re “in.” (since it’s difficult to verify wealth levels)

Admins closely monitor the network : Rules state that members aren’t allowed to “annoy, harass or unreasonably disturb members, or try to connect to members with whom you have no previous contact.” aSmallWorld kick out members who engage in improper behavior (like networking rapidly with the celebrities or selling products too aggressively).

Members are not allowed to discuss the inner goings-on of aSmallWorld on any outside website”. Problematic users are immediately exiled to a separate network called aBigWorld;

” However, it’s very difficult to build a network based solely on wealth,” says Stephen Martiros, a managing director of a coalition of rich families based in Boston. “You might start with a few wealthy people, but as you grow it eventually reverts to the mean. And once that happens, the wealthy leave. If you have one guy worth $100 million sitting at a table with a guy worth $1 million, only one of them is going to be excited to be there.”

Besides, membership invitations or passwords to the site can be easily purchased on eBay. Some angry users have therefore posted hilarious comments that THE WALL STREET JOURNAL brought to us :

“Who invites these people? We should be selective who to invite. What about quality control?”

“There is no reason why when we come online we should have to socialize with truck drivers”

“One of my friends told me that the site has lowered so much its level, that she has invited her maids.”

Résidence Supérieur is an extreme luxury concept designed by internationally known lifestyle designer Richard Nilsson, located on the French Riviera in Cannes. The concept include super sports cars, private jets, yachts, butlers, chefs, bodyguards and basically any other service you may wish for.

Guests can get access to an exclusive car fleet, regularly updated, which today consists of a Wiesmann Roadster, Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder and Mercedes S-Class.

This villa is located in beautiful, spacious enclosed grounds (3,900 m 2). It has 450 m2 of floor space and has 4 luxury bedrooms and a garden house. Each bedroom has a sea view and a private bathroom with a jaccuzzi.

Résidence Supérieur is created for the extreme connoisseurs and is totally unique in the way that there are no limits for how you can tailor your staying..
For instance, when you stay at Résidence Supérieur you can take a helicopter to the mountains and ski in the morning followed by a golf round later that day. Then you can take the “heligourmet” tour which includes a helicopter ride to a three star restaurant.

Some of the celebrities that have visited Villa Oxygene recently include Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria who recently shot an ice cream commercial there. The concept will be expanded to other locations in the near future.

This $400 million super-yacht was built for a Russian oligarch, Andrey Melnichenko, 37, who is worth $9.2 billion and was ranked 172 on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people.

There is a large master suite as well as six luxury cabins for up to 14 guests and enough room for 42 crew members.

Designed by Philippe Stark, the 400ft long superyacht is said to have its own discotheque featuring a glass roof which is situated directly under the swimming pool.

A mansion in London is set to sell for £117million ($230 mn) – making it the world’s costliest home. The palatial residence, on a street dubbed Billionaires’ Row, is believed to have been bought by Britain’s richest man, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.

He is believed to be close to exchanging contracts with owner Noam Gottesman, 47, a US-born financier.
The home in Kensington Palace Gardens, West London, Princess Diana’s former street, is being sold furnished and with an art collection. It works out at an astonishing £8,000 per square foot.

His new pad pips the £115million previous record – paid in March for a flat being built in nearby St James’s Square.

Caviar for patients recovering from a blood test, psychoanalysis at 10,000 dollars (6,360 euros) per hour: nothing is too much for ailing billionaires at the Neo Vita clinic in Moscow’s swishest suburb.

For the clinic’s founder, Artyom Tolokonin, ensuring good health for the capital’s super-rich inhabitants is even better for his pocket book.

The 33-year-old psychoanalyst says that about a dozen residents of the Rublyovka neighbourhood — dubbed Moscow’s Beverly Hills — are paying for year-round treatments costing as much as a million dollars (636,000 euros) a time. [...]

Visitors pass a police post and surveillance cameras, before having their street shoes clad in clean overshoes, and entering a hallway gently illuminated by liquid-like jets of light.
Multiple flat TV screens broadcast images of the countryside along to specially composed anti-stress music.

Everything at Neo Vita is done to pamper not only the bodies, but the egos and reputations of patients. Examination room doors remain unmarked “so as not to advertise our clients’ problems,” as Tolokonin explained.
Clients even more keen on privacy can use a discreet side door. One, a well known businessman, according to Tolokonin, has even paid 200,000 dollars (127,000 euros) to reserve the entire place to himself when he visited his doctor.

“People able to pay 10,000 dollars (6,360 euros) for an hour of psychoanalysis are a very specific sort,” said Tolokonin, who has practised in the Rublyovka neighbourhood for six years. [...]

However, Natalya, [...] said she and her husband, “who works in the gas sector,” visit Neo Vita every week. “Basically we pay a little less than 10,000 dollars (6,360 euros) an hour,” she said. “But health is more valuable than money.” [..]

Tolokonin said the extraordinary prices were justified.“The rich go to London for a dentist or a popular dietician in Switzerland, but their soul can only be healed here.”
Russian billionaires have the same problems as their counterparts elsewhere — fatigue, insomnia, substance abuse, impotence — but “Western psychoanalysts don’t know the Russian mentality,” Tolokonin said.[..]