Russia’s oligarchs are queuing up for government funding as the global financial crisis looks set to trigger a new redistribution of property in which the state will determine the winners.

In a reversal of the privatisations of the 1990s, when the oligarchs dictated to a weak state the terms of the sell-off, the Russian government will dig into its cash reserves of nearly $560bn (€410bn, £319bn) to decide the fate of some of the country’s most overleveraged businessmen by disbursing an $87bn rescue package.