(Bloomberg News) Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk wants to talk about income inequality. So does Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien and Indian billionaire Vikas Oberoi.
The three are among a contingent of at least 70 billionaires who are joining more than 2,500 business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week, according to a list of attendees and promotional materials obtained by Bloomberg News. A half-dozen of the richest participants, interviewed in advance of the conference, say economic disparity needs to be addressed.
"Many who will be in Davos are the people being blamed for economic inequalities," Oberoi, 42, chairman of Oberoi Realty Ltd., India's second-biggest real estate developer by market value, said in an interview earlier this month by mobile phone from his car in Mumbai. "I hope it's not just about glamour and people having a big party."
Oberoi, who's attending Davos for the first time, and like- minded billionaires may have trouble finding the subject of income inequality on the agenda. While the forum's Global Risks 2012 report, published this month, describes "severe income disparity" as the world's top risk over the next 10 years, tied with fiscal imbalances and ahead of greenhouse-gas emissions, the word "inequality" appears only once in the event's 130- page program, and that's in the title of a panel about art.
Some sessions in a series labeled "Ensuring Inclusive Growth and Development" will touch on income inequality, said Kevin Steinberg, chief operating officer of the forum in the U.S. A panel titled "Remodeling Capitalism" is scheduled for Jan. 27 at the Swiss Alpine High School auditorium, six shuttle- bus stops away from the conference's main location.
Last year, wealth disparities helped fuel protests from Cairo to New York, and the Occupy Wall Street movement made the richest 1 percent targets. That hasn't gone unnoticed by some Davos participants, including Azim Premji, 66, chairman of Bangalore-based Wipro Ltd., India's third-largest software exporter, who in December 2010 transferred stock then worth $2 billion to a foundation that supports education for the poor.
"We have seen in 2011 what ignoring this aspect can result in," Premji wrote in an e-mail. "If we don't take cognizance of it and try to solve this problem, it can create a chaotic upheaval globally."
That view was shared by Pinchuk, 51, founder of Interpipe, a Ukrainian maker of steel pipes for the oil and gas industries, who is attending Davos for the eighth time.
"The global social-economic order will change, if we want it or not," Pinchuk wrote in an e-mail. In a second e-mail, he said businesses should concentrate on both maximizing profits and assuring "a more just distribution of wealth."
Pinchuk, who will host an event in Davos about philanthropy moderated by Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton, celebrated his 50th birthday in the French ski resort of Courchevel in December 2010 with several hundred friends. The party featured performances by Christina Aguilera and a troupe of Cirque du Soleil acrobats, according to an account in the Los Angeles Times. Dennis Kazvan, a spokesman for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is sponsoring the Davos event, declined to comment about the party.