Mikhail Fridman: biography, activities, family

Mikhail Fridman (born April 21, 1964) is a prominent Russian businessman of Jewish origin. He is the chairman of the supervisory board of Alfa Group, one of the largest private investment companies in Russia. In 2014 Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $ 15.6 billion, which makes him the second among the richest people in Russia. How did Mikhail Fridman achieve this position? Biography, the family in which he was born and raised, is what will help the reader understand the origins of his current success.

Childhood and youth

The biography of Mikhail Fridman began, as did millions of other Soviet boys. He was born and raised in Lviv, Ukraine. His parents, already elderly people, were engineers, and his father was awarded the USSR State Prize for the development of navigation devices for military aircraft. They were very happy when the youngest son was born in the family. Mikhail Friedman from childhood distinguished zeal for science. In the process of studying, he repeatedly won school olympiads in physics and mathematics.

In Lviv, Misha graduated from high school in 1980. And then - to Moscow ... He goes to the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. Many people who took part in life married still students. Mikhail Fridman did not escape this fate either. Wife, Irkutsk, Olga, was Mikhail's classmate.

In his student years, the entrepreneurial vein also manifests itself for the first time. He becomes the organizer of youth discos, invites musicians and bards to them with payment of royalties.

Start a business career

After graduating in 1986 MISiS, Mikhail Fridman began working at the plant "Elektrostal" in the homonymous town near Moscow. But his time was approaching, and when it came, Friedman did not miss a favorable moment.

In 1988, he started entrepreneurial activity by creating with a group of friends from the institute a cleaning cooperative who was engaged in washing windows where he used students from different universities, giving them the opportunity to earn extra income.

How to start "Alfa Group"

Along with Herman Khan, Alexei Kuzmichev and Peter Aven, Mikhail Fridman founded the Alfa-Photos trading company in 1989, which dealt with the sale of materials for photography, computers, and only then copiers that appeared on the Soviet market.

Soon, having saved up the initial capital on trade in office equipment, Fridman switches to the basic product for all Russian oligarchs - oil products. The instrument for their transshipment abroad for our hero is the Soviet-Swiss firm Alfa-Eco, the prototype of the future Alfa Group.

The company develops according to the classical scheme for Russian capital: metal products are added to the commodity flows sent abroad, the volumes of operations reach such a level that Friedman's business structure in 1991 has its own Alfa-Bank, whose board of directors he And heads.

Privatization of TNK - the peak of Friedman's and Co.'s business career

In fact, this story deserves a separate study. But briefly it looks like this. In the mid-nineties, the then Russian government was "tearing" the state enterprise Rosneft, the successor to the USSR's Minneftegazprom, into tatters. From Rosneft, the most tasty pieces associated with oil production (Nizhnevartovsk and Tyumen oil fields) and refining (Ryazan refinery) are singled out. They are united in a newly created enterprise, which becomes the Tyumen Oil Company (TNC), then a state enterprise. A privatization tender is also announced with three firms that are candidates for TNCs, headed by prominent Russian businessmen of that time: Mikhail Fridman (Alfa Group), V. Vekselberg (Renova) and L. Blavatnik (Access Industries). In order to more easily interact among themselves in the process of privatization, they join the consortium Alfa Access Renova (AAR), which in 1997 became the owner of TNCs for sixteen subsequent years.

Tyumen Oil Company: running around in a circle of 16 years

During this time, the owners took many "fateful" decisions. First, in 2003, they merged with the British Petroleum corporation into the joint structure of TNK-BP, then in 2008 they quarreled with their British partners to death, so the sword was even "razed" by the High Court of London.

Finally, it became clear to the Russian leadership that during the global economic crisis there would be no sense from the owners of TNK-BP, and in 2013 the same state-owned company Rosneft purchased from the British and Russian owners their shares in the long-suffering enterprise. Nobody will tell Russian citizens how much in 1997 the Russian state was paid for the privatization of TNK Fridman-Vekselberg-Blavatnik. But how much she paid for her purchase of Rosneft in 2012-13 is well known: the British took $ 16.65 billion, and the consortium AAR - as much as $ 27.73 billion, while the partners owned about 50% of the shares of the combined company.

How the money was distributed to each other Friedman-Vekselberg-Blavatnik is not known to anyone. But judging by the fact that the first of them, based on sales, founded a new business in Europe - the investment group "L1 Group", he did not remain in the loser.

What is the business empire of Friedman today?

Firstly, it is the investment group, which is currently managed by Alfa-Bank (the largest Russian private bank), which includes such business structures as Alfa Capital Management, Rosvodokanal, AlfaStrakhovanie and A1 Group. The group owns mobile operators Megafon and VimpelCom, retail chains Pyaterochka and Perekrestok.

In addition, Mikhail Fridman is chairman of the "L1 Group", headquartered in Luxembourg. The business of this international investment group is focused on telecommunications assets and the energy sector of the economy. It includes two main divisions: "L1 Energy" and "L1 Technologies". Friedman is also a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche DEA AG Erdoel, Hamburg, bought by L1 Energy in 2015.

By the way, the board of directors of L1 Group includes old friends - Friedman's associates, with whom he started back in the late 1980s: Kuzmichev, Khan, and P. Aven, a former minister of the Russian Gaidar government.

Buying assets in the North Sea

In March 2015, L1 Group acquired the German oil company RWE Dea for more than £ 5 billion. It owns 12 active oil and gas fields in the North Sea and oil fields in other locations. The deal caused objections from the British government, which believes that it contradicts the sanctions restrictions against Russian firms in connection with the events in Ukraine. "L1 Group" intends to create a new company to launch production in new oil fields, led by the former head of British Petroleum, Lord Brown.

On March 4, 2015, the British Minister for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davie gave Friedman a one-week term to convince the British government not to force him to sell oil and gas assets acquired in the North Sea. What ended this story, is still unknown, but, given the experience and resourcefulness of Mikhail Fridman in business processes, you can be sure that he will find a way out this time.

Public activity in Jewish organizations

Friedman is an active supporter of Jewish initiatives in Russia and other European countries. In 1996, he was one of the founders of the Russian Jewish Congress, currently a member of the Presidium of the RJC. He makes a great contribution to the work of the European Jewish Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed at the development of European Jewry and the promotion of tolerance and reconciliation on the continent.

Friedman, along with Stan Polovets and three colleagues, Russian Jewish billionaires Alexander Knaster, Peter Aven and Herman Khan, founded the Genesis Group, whose goal is to develop and improve Jewish identity among Jews around the world. Every year the "Genesis Group" award is presented to the laureates, who have achieved perfection and international renown for the embodiment of the character of the Jewish people through adherence to national values.

At the ceremony of awarding the first annual prize in Jerusalem in 2014, Friedman told the audience that it was designed to inspire a new generation of Jews, exemplified by the outstanding professional achievements of the laureates, their contribution to the universal culture and commitment to Jewish values.

Membership and activities in international and Russian public structures

Since 2005, Friedman has been Russia's representative to the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-profit American organization that unites representatives of the world establishment, whose goal is to spread the American version of democracy around the world.

Fridman is a member of numerous Russian public organizations, including the Public Chamber of Russia, the Board of Directors of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the National Council for Corporate Governance.

He is an active supporter of the national literary award "The Big Book" and a member of the board of the "Center for the Support of Russian Literature", focused on the implementation of cultural programs, promoting the ideals of humanism and respect for the values of Russian culture.

Mikhail Fridman: personal life

With his first wife Olga, he divorced quite a long time, more than 10 years ago. How many children does Mikhail Fridman have? Children from the first marriage are two daughters: Catherine (1998) and Laura (1995). The girls were born and lived with their mother in Paris, where they graduated from the American school. Completely providing a former wife and daughters with a comfortable existence, Friedman himself almost did not contact them.

What does the family of Mikhail Fridman look like now? For several years now he has been living in a civil marriage with Oksana Ozhelskaya, a former employee of Alfa-Bank. According to some reports, they also have two children.