About the personal life and business of Alexei Mordashov in detail. The rapid rise of Alexei Mordashov: the history of the creation of a business Alexey Alexandrovich Mordashov criminal past

Alexei Mordashov is very different from most Russian billionaires. In his manner of doing business, he resembles the head of Siemens or General Electric rather than one of the heroes of the Russian era of primitive accumulation of capital. He forces all his managers to get an MBA degree abroad. In the late 1990s, his company was the largest McKinsey client in Eastern Europe, which he used not only for consulting but also as a talent pool. The general director of Severstal Group did not participate in any privatization scandals, he did not get into politics, until recently he lived not in Moscow, but in his native Cherepovets. Even when in 2001 competitors collected dirt on him, they only unearthed a sad story from his personal life - an abandoned first wife with a teenage son receiving meager alimony.

“We didn’t seize anything, we didn’t run into anyone, we didn’t use state bodies or corruption,” says Alexey Mordashov in an interview with Forbes. “Everything we bought, we bought with money.”

And only one story from Mordashov's past has so far remained a secret with seven seals. About how, in fact, he gained control of Severstal, only a few laconic statements by Mordashov himself were published.

Forbes was able to ask about this story of its second main participant, the hitherto silent ex-general director of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, Yuri Lipukhin. From his stories, it becomes clear that Mordashov bought the shares of the plant, although for money, but not for his own. And his partner and, by the way, Lipukhin's godfather, deftly brushed aside.

The history of the privatization of Severstal is the history of two generations of managers, Soviet and post-Soviet, who won the younger and lost the older. Kind of like a remake of King Lear.

“Father will not pull all the skeletons out of the closet,” Lipukhin’s son Viktor warned us before giving us the coordinates of the former Severstal CEO. “He has both a love and a hate for the company.” Indeed, Yuri Lipukhin today speaks of the enterprise to which he devoted most of his life, with pain and pride, and about Mordashov, either with respect or with bitter resentment. “I entrusted the privatization of the plant to Alexei, and it was my mistake,” Lipukhin says ruefully in an interview with Forbes. - Because at one point he became a completely different person. He was not the master of his word.

The biography of the triumphant hero is widely known. Mordashov was born and grew up in Cherepovets. His mother worked at a metallurgical plant, and his father was one of its builders. In the early 1980s, he entered the Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Economics, where, by the way, he met Anatoly Chubais. In 1988, having returned to Cherepovets, he came to his native plant as a senior shop economist. The energetic young man was quickly noticed by his superiors. Mordashov was sent for a six-month internship at the Austrian steel company Voest Alpine.

Returning after an internship in 1990, Mordashov met with the general director of the plant. Lipukhin liked the budding economist for his cheerfulness and enterprise. “He had great proposals for restructuring. I saw that a person thinks, creatively approaches the matter, - says Lipukhin. — It was easier for the younger generation to build new economic relations. This required theoretical preparation and the absence of complexes that were typical for us.

True, Mordashov's promising career was almost interrupted at the very beginning. Together with him, the son of the Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy Serafim Kolpakov, Sergei, trained in Austria. “Alexey arranged something inappropriate, quarreled with him over trifles,” says Lipukhin.

Mordashov recalls this story with a laugh: “Well, yes, it was like that. He wanted to relax, and I wanted to study. And he complained to his father. The consequences, however, could be very serious for the future owner of Severstal. “The minister demanded that I remove him immediately,” says Lipukhin. - But I stood up for Alexei and slowly defended him. Then Alexei had a lot of such skirmishes. He is a hot-tempered, conflicted person.

Lipukhin attributed these qualities to the youth of his subordinate, and in 1992 he appointed 27-year-old Mordashov as director of finance and economics.

The company was going through hard times at the time. After the collapse of the USSR, Severstal lost its domestic sales market. The reorientation to export - and now the company exports about 40% of its products - began under Lipukhin.

“Traders appeared - including emigrants from Russia, all smart, energetic, who came to us and said: give us 10,000 tons of metal, we will buy it from you and sell it in China or Malaysia,” says Mordashov. We did not know the world market and did not receive a normal price. There was a period when steel was bought from us at $200 per ton and sold for $300 or $350.”

The traders got so rich skimming the cream off the steel mills that they soon began to take full control of the cash cows. The most predatory turned out to be Trans-World Group, which crushed most of the Russian aluminum and steel industries. TWG also took note of Severstal.

According to one of the managers of the plant, Vladimir Lisin, at that time one of the top managers of Trans-World, and now the main owner of the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works, first came to Cherepovets. Lisin allegedly came to discuss a project related to Moscow real estate, but Cherepovites believe that his mission was more of a reconnaissance one. Because after him, TWG chief Mikhail Chernoy himself rushed to the plant with proposals to organize trade financing and offshore schemes for the plant. Lipukhin refused Cherny, but he did not back down immediately. On behalf of TWG, young Iskander Makhmudov and Oleg Deripaska later visited Cherepovets with new proposals. However, they also received a turn from the gate. TWG did not fight hard for the plant - she had to act on too many fronts.

“There were a lot of objects for which there was a struggle, and they simply did not pay due attention to us,” says Mordashov. - And we lived very locally, we didn’t go anywhere. Often people called me, including representatives of large groups, and invited, say, to dinner in Moscow, but I simply did not answer the calls.

Traders, including Trans-World, offered Severstal managers assistance in the privatization of the enterprise. Having abandoned it, the Cherepovets team, however, applied the methods of TWG: they used trader structures to establish control over the plant. Mordashov easily convinced Lipukhin that the shares of the plant should be taken away for himself - in order to prevent outsiders from entering the enterprise.

Privatization began in 1993. A controlling stake of 51% was to be distributed among employees by closed subscription, and 29% were to be put up for a voucher auction. So the Lipukhin team had to urgently buy vouchers for all available money.

This is how they made money. Under the purchase of shares, the Severstal-Invest company was created. According to the law, enterprises in which state-owned companies had more than 25% could not participate in privatization. Therefore, the plant itself had only 24% in Severstal-Invest. The rest 76% was personally owned by Mordashov. Lipukhin proposed to create a core of shareholders from members of the board of directors and other "most respected people at the plant", but Mordashov dissuaded him. Yes, Lipukhin did not particularly insist. “Then few people understood privatization, they were afraid to get involved with it,” recalls Mordashov.

The plant sold metal to Severstal-Invest at low prices. The trading company used a huge margin from its resale to buy vouchers, and at the same time shares from workers. “I was practically trading with myself,” says Lipukhin. - I could set any prices, you understand? I saw, of course, that this is the purest… that this is a fictitious work, not quite correct commerce. However, I controlled the actions of this company, provided it with goods and loans, protected it from all controlling organizations, from the tax inspectorate, ministries, and currency control.

According to Lipukhin, Severstal-Invest not only received metal at reduced prices, but also took large loans from the plant. Money accumulated quickly. And as a result of the voucher auction, the managers of Severstal managed to get almost the entire block of shares put up for auction. Competitors again underestimated the Cherepovets privatizers.

“Our competitors, apparently, decided that we were a weak team that accidentally got hooked on something at the plant, and thought: well, let it sit there for a while, we’ll deal with it later,” recalls Mordashov, not without malice.

Over time, Severstal-Invest bought out almost all the shares from the workforce. “Then there were very difficult times, often they did not pay wages, and people willingly sold their shares,” recalls Lipukhin. Without mentioning at the same time that part of the money that went to Severstal-Invest due to the plant's low selling prices could have been used to pay the same salaries.

Lipukhin says that he did not seek to become the owner of the plant. "I did not set out to become the owner of the plant, although this would not have been a problem." Didn't he fear the fact that he was giving control of the shares to Mordashov? Lipukhin says that he absolutely trusted his subordinate: “Alexey was completely different at that time. He understood that everything depended on me, and he had one answer to everything: as you say, so be it. To this talented and obedient manager, the 60-year-old director was ready to give up his place: “I have already worked out. It's time to look for a replacement."

In 1996, Mordashov became the CEO of Severstal, and Lipukhin took over as chairman of the board of directors. It was then that he finally took care of the formal ownership of the shares. Those 43% of the shares of Severstal, which by that time had been accumulated by Severstal-Invest, were transferred to another structure - Severstal-Garant, 51% owned by Mordashov, 49% by Lipukhin.

At first, according to Lipukhin, they agreed on equal shares: “When I decided to leave, I told him - express your proposals on how to divide these shares. He says equally. I say okay, I agree. After he became a director, he and his friends went to some islands, walked for a week, and when he returned, he came and said: equally not quite normal for me, give you 49%, and me 51%. I didn't care. I said, come on, I agree.

Thanks to Lipukhin's compliance, there was no quarrel between the partners. When Mordashov was baptized in 1997, Lipukhin became his godfather. But even then, the ex-director understood: the charter of Severstal-Garant did not give him any opportunity to influence the management of Severstal shares. “Alexey received the combine on a plate with a blue border,” Lipukhin says bitterly. “I simply gave the plant to him and faded into the background.”

The conflict between the two privatizers emerged after the 1998 default. With the devaluation of the ruble, the business of the plant went uphill sharply - after all, its costs were calculated in rubles, and the proceeds were mainly in foreign currency. Net profit rose from $111 million in 1997 to $453 million in 2000. What to do with this profit - because of this, the partners quarreled.

“I had a strategy - to develop the plant, restore production, improve the environment,” says Lipukhin. - But Alexei considered it a disastrous affair. The development of the plant was curtailed, and God knows what began.

Mordashov followed the path of creating a diversified holding company, later named Severstal Group, and began to buy up industrial assets: shares in the St. Petersburg, Tuapse and Vostochny ports, coal mines, as well as railway cars, the Kolomna Diesel Locomotive Plant, the UAZ plant. Mordashov explains the desire to diversify the business by the need to smooth out the cyclicality of the steel business.

It was at this time that Mordashov did away with the principle of collegial management of the plant's shares. “In the spring of 1999, he arbitrarily, without my knowledge, bought back 17% of the shares that belonged to Severstal-Invest,” says Lipukhin. - I went up to him and said: Alyosha, you can’t act like that. His answer was extremely short: it was not written anywhere.”

That's why Lipukhin is still offended by his successor and accuses him of violating this word. Mordashov denies any gentlemen's agreements with Lipukhin. He believes that he acted extremely honestly in relation to the ex-director. “His fate differs from the fate of other old directors in that he was not expelled from the plant as a result of privatization,” says Mordashov. — On the contrary, Lipukhin became one of the largest shareholders of the company. I didn’t take everything for myself, although legally I could do it.”

Diversifying the business, Mordashov for the first time in his career got involved in a tough competition. The Zavolzhsky Motor Plant, a supplier of engines for GAZ, became the subject of his conflict with the owner of GAZ, Oleg Deripaska. With the head of Evrazholding, Alexander Abramov, Mordashov fought for Kuzbassugol. Another of his rivals - for dominance in the metallurgical market - was Iskander Makhmudov. At Severstal, they believe that it was he who financed the litigation with Mordashov of his ex-wife. Makhmudov's entourage does not comment on this.

One way or another, these lawsuits made Mordashov think about protecting property. And in early 2001, he asked Lipukhin to give him his 49% stake in Severstal-Garant. The ex-director claims that he received six times less for this package than he could have earned on the market. Mordashov does not name the price of the transaction, after which he became almost the sole owner of Severstal, but flatly denies that he bought the shares at such a discount.

Lipukhin still monitors the state of affairs at the plant, where he worked for 42 years, 15 of them as a director. “Blast furnace number four is standing still, the by-product coke plant is in a bad state, the section rolling shop produces a third of what it can produce,” he complains. “Today, the plant produces 3 million tons of rolled products less than in 1990, although the country is experiencing an acute shortage of metal - metal prices in Russia are almost the highest in the world.”

And yet, Mordashov, having expanded his industrial empire, now largely follows the advice of his predecessor: he again realized that the main business of Severstal is metallurgy. To gain access to the American market, Mordashov defeated U.S. Steel in the fight for the bankrupt Rouge Industries, one of the largest steel companies in the United States, founded in the 1920s by Henry Ford.

“The American market is the most demanding in terms of quality,” Mordashov explains the purchase of Rouge for $285 million. “Working with such a consumer is very important in order to raise the standards of our products.”

Someone will say that the main owner of Severstal - now Mordashov and related companies have 83% of the shares - dealt harshly with the person who at one time raised him and entrusted him with control over the plant. But against the background of the bloody showdowns of those years, the history of Severstal looks like an exception. At the Cherepovets plant there was no shooting, no court squabbles. Lipukhin turned out to be too decent a person, and Mordashov, as a Western-style manager, showed himself not so bad.

CEO of Severstal Group
and chairman of the board of directors

OAO Severstal since 2002. Since 1988

worked at the Cherepovets Metallurgical
plant: in 1992 he became director of
finance and economics, and in 1996 -
company general manager,
transformed during privatization into
OAO Severstal. In 2011 Forbes magazine
assessed the state of the entrepreneur in
$18.5 billion (29th in
ranking of the richest people in the world).
Short biography.

Alexey Alexandrovich Mordashov

years in the city of Cherepovets, Vologda region in the family of employees
Cherepovets metallurgical plant. In 1988 with honors
Graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Leningrad Engineering and
Institute of Economics named after Palmiro Togliatti (LIEI, since 2000 -
St. Petersburg State Engineering and Economics
university). One of Mordashov's teachers was Anatoly
Chubais, at the department to which he got a job after the first year
assistant. According to Mordashov's memoirs, Chubais introduced him to
the works of Yegor Gaidar and introduced to the club of young people who gathered at the institute
economists.

Returning to his hometown, Mordashov since 1988 worked for
Cherepovets metallurgical plant. Held senior positions
economist, head of the bureau of economics and labor organization of repair and
machine shop number 1, deputy head of the planning department
plant. In 1990, he completed a six-month internship at
steel company Voest Alpine in Austria. In 1992 was
was appointed director of the plant for finance and economics of Cherepovets
metallurgical plant, in 1993 transformed into OJSC

Severstal

General Director of the enterprise Yuri Lipukhin in 1993 entrusted
Mordashov leadership of the Severstal privatization process.
Mordashov created a subsidiary of Severstal-invest, in which
he personally owned 76 percent of the shares, and Severstal - 24
percent. Then he bought the shares of Severstal: 16 percent ended up in his
personal property, and another 80 percent under his control. After
This Lipukhin was dismissed. Mordashov subsequently
said that the privatization of Severstal, although not entirely fair,
was expedient, since the enterprise eventually received an “honest
owner." In April 1996, Mordashov took over as General
Director of JSC Severstal.

In 2001, Mordashov received a master's degree in business
Administration (MBA) at Northumbria University School of Business
(Newcastle, UK).

In June 2002, Severstal was restructured: a meeting
shareholders decided to establish a management company CJSC
Severstal Group. Mordashov became its CEO, leaving
a similar post in Severstal. He also became chairman of the councils
directors of OAO Severstal, OAO Severstal-Avto, OAO
"Severstal-resource". Over time, the Mordashov corporation included
assets in mining, automotive, woodworking
industry, banking, insurance and transport.

By 2001, the main media were under the control of Mordashov
Cherepovets and the Vologda region: Transmit radio station, TV channels
"TV-7", "12" and "Province", cable television studio "Skat", newspapers
"Speech", "Courier" and others. By the end of the 1990s, Mordashov
gained a decisive influence in elections to local authorities, in
in particular, with the support of the head of Severstal, the mayor of Cherepovets was elected
Mikhail Stavrovsky (in some sources he appeared as
Stavetsky).

Journalists saw in Mordashov one of the representatives of the new
generations of "Putin's" oligarchs who were supposed to oust the old
- "Yeltsin". Mordashov maintained relations with many
representatives of the "Petersburg" group in Moscow. From the time of his
studying at LIEI, he still had acquaintances with Anatoly Chubais,
Alexei Kudrin, Petr Mostov, Alexander Kazakov,
Vladimir Kogan and others. According to the press, it is
friendship with Vladimir Kogan - one of the "St. Petersburg oligarchs" -
brought Mordashov closer to Vladimir Putin. With Putin coming to power
coincides with the beginning of Mordashov's active participation in public life.
According to some sources, Mordashov in 2001 claimed
place of Deputy Prime Minister in the Russian government and even expected
stand as a candidate for the next presidential election.

Since November 2000, Mordashov has been a member of the presidium and bureau
Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs
(RSPP), head of the RSPP committee on trade policy. Since March 2001
heads the RSPP working group on Russia's accession to the WTO and
customs policy reform.

Since 2000, Mordashov has also headed the Metallurgy,
steel industry, construction and construction
materials” of the Round Table of Industrialists of the Russian Federation and the EU, is part of
public council for the reform of enterprises under
the government of the Russian Federation. Since April 2002, it has been part of the Russian-German
working group on strategic issues in the field of economics and
finance. From May 2003 to June 2004 he was a member of the Council for
entrepreneurship under the government of the Russian Federation. In April 2004 was
Elected Member of the Board of Directors of the New York EastWest Institute
(East-West Institute). Since June 2004 he has been a member of the Council for
competitiveness and entrepreneurship under the government of the Russian Federation. FROM
March 2006 is a member of the Council for Business Cooperation between Russia and the EU.

Since November 2004, Mordashov has been a member of the expert council for
public-private partnership and investment under the Ministry
Russian culture. He is on the board of trustees of the State
Academic Bolshoi Theatre, State Tretyakov
gallery, Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery, Russian
Chess Federation and the State Russian Museum.

In July 2005 " Severstal Group» acquired from RAO UES 70
percent of the shares of the Ren-TV channel. In this regard, the media again remembered
about the connections between Mordashov and Putin, whom the oligarch supported
during the 2004 elections. The fact is that Ren-TV remained the last
channel of federal significance, which actively criticized the president.
In the West, the deal was regarded as a new blow dealt
Russian leadership on freedom of speech.

Mordashov's business by this time had gone beyond Russian
borders. In 2004, the entrepreneur purchased for 285 million
dollars bankrupt metallurgical concern Rouge Industries,
ranked fourth in terms of production in the United States. In the first
half of 2005, Severstal acquired 70 percent of the shares
Italian steel manufacturer Lucchini, according to other sources - 62
percent of shares in the amount of 430 million euros.

However, until 2006, Mordashov was not widely known for
abroad. Everything changed when, on May 26 this year, based in
Luxembourg steel corporation Arcelor announced plans
merger with Severstal. As a result, there should have been
the world's largest steel company with an annual
with a production volume of about 70 million tons of steel. Terms
original agreement, in exchange for 89.6
percent of Severstal shares and 1.25 billion euros in cash
Mordashov was supposed to receive 32.2 percent of the shares of the enlarged Arcelor
and 6 out of 18 board seats. Mordashov stated that in the case
successful transaction can be an important step forward and for the development of its
company, and to improve the international image of Russia. Not by chance
The deal was approved by representatives of the Russian authorities.

On the idea of ​​acquiring a Russian company, Arcelor management
spurred by the prospect that arose in January 2006
"hostile" takeover of the world's largest corporation
metallurgical group Mittal Steel. Steel tycoon replacement idea
Indian Lakshmi Mittal (Lakshmi Mittal) on a little-known Russian
oligarch, many shareholders of Arcelor did not like it - the first, according to them
thought was more predictable. In addition, there were concerns that
Mordashov will soon be able to achieve almost sole
control over Arcelor and will begin to ignore the interests of other shareholders.

The Russian businessman objected that under the terms of the deal in
it will not be able to increase its shareholding in the coming years, and
argued that the merger would be beneficial to both parties. However
critics of the deal, including representatives of the continuing struggle Mittal,
insisted that the merger with the Russian company was contrary to
the interests of Arcelor's shareholders. In addition, a significant role in
formed the opinion of shareholders and the public
traditional Western distrust of Russian political and
economic institutions.

Amid shareholder protest and ongoing negotiations, Arcelor and
Mittal Mordashov proposed new conditions for the merger on June 21: now he
was ready to be content with 25 percent of the shares. However, instead of Arcelor
had to abandon the restrictions on Mordashov's independence in
Board of Shareholders and from the amount that was supposed to be received from
Russian side in cash. However, according to observers,
the fight for Arcelor leadership has already achieved Mittal. According to press reports,
at this time, Mordashov had a strong ally: allegedly in prison
deal he was ready to help Roman Abramovich. However, June 25
2006 Arcelor's board of directors unanimously voted in favor of
deals with Mittal. Many domestic observers, including
officials, regarded Arcelor's decision as a political one: according to them
opinion, it meant a ban on the entry of Russian business into the world
level and served as evidence of the manifestation of Western "Russophobia".

In May 2004, Russian Forbes magazine assessed the personal fortune
Mordashov in 4.5 billion dollars - he then took ninth place in
list of the 100 richest businessmen in Russia. March 2005
Mordashov took 107th place in the ranking of the richest people in the world according to
Forbes version: his fortune was estimated at 4.8 billion dollars. AT
May 2005, with a fortune of $ 5.1 billion, the oligarch took
seventh place in the list of "100 richest businessmen in Russia" Forbes. AT
March 2006, Forbes experts rated Mordashov's condition at 7.6
billion dollars and assigned him 64th place in the list of the richest
people of the planet.

In 2006, the foreign press reported that at the personal disposal
Mordashov are 89.6 percent of the shares of Severstal. Annual
the company's revenues by this time had reached $11.7 billion. By
According to 2006 data, Severstal was ranked 13th in the world ranking
International Steel Association. In 2005 Severstal smelted
15.16 million tons of steel. Net profit of OAO Severstal in the first
quarter of 2006 decreased by 44.4 percent compared to
the same period in 2005 and amounted to 5.676 billion rubles.

April 19, 2007 in the Russian version of Forbes magazine was published
rating of the richest citizens of Russia. According to the log,
the list of the hundred richest Russians was headed by Abramovich, whose fortune
March 2007 reached $19.2 billion. Mordashov with 12.1
billion dollars ranked ninth.

In the ranking of the richest inhabitants of the planet, compiled by the American
Forbes in March 2008, Mordashov appeared at number 18 (his
fortune was estimated at $21.2 billion). However, in the same year
Smart Money magazine, which calculated the losses of Russian billionaires from
the beginning of the global financial crisis, classified Mordashov among
those whose business has been seriously affected. According to the publication,
its assets fell by $16.6 billion. In March 2009 in
In the Forbes ranking, the businessman was already mentioned as the owner of a fortune at 4.3
billion dollars (122nd place). Russian version of Forbes in April 2009
year placed Mordashov in seventh place in the list of Russian
billionaires.

In April 2009, the Kommersant newspaper reported that the company
Mordashova S-Group Capital Management (owns 15.03 percent of shares
travel holding TUI AG) and Europe's largest tour operator TUI Travel
acquired a controlling stake in the Russian tour operator VKO Group.
At the same time, as noted by the publication, for experts, Mordashov’s interest in
tourism - a business with low profitability - remained a mystery. Not
the amount of the transaction was also reported: it was only noted that before the crisis, the entire
business of VKO Group was estimated at 10-25 million dollars, and in new
conditions, the discount could be 30-40 percent.

In July 2011, the German concern Siemens sold Highstat
Ltd, the ultimate beneficiary of which was called Mordashov in the press,
a blocking stake (25 percent + one share) of shares in OJSC Power Machines.
Highstat Ltd was already the main shareholder at that time
"Silmash": the company owned a little more than 70 percent of the shares.
In addition, Siemens and Power Machines agreed to establish
joint venture for the production and service of large gas
turbines.

Since 2007 " Severstal» began to buy up gold mining
companies: it included Neryungri-Metallik, Rudnik Aprelkovo,
Canadian company High River Gold and owning gold mines
mines in Kazakhstan Celtic Resources. January to July 2010
Severstal conducted a number of transactions to purchase a controlling stake
British gold mining company Crew Gold, which owns a large
gold mine in Guinea. The total value of the transaction was 230
million dollars. It was reported that after that Severstal took
second place in gold mining among Russian companies, behind only
Polyus Gold. In September 2010, it became known that Severstal
agreed with the Canadian Endeavor Fund to buy back 43
percent Crew Gold. The amount of the transaction, as a result of which the company's share
Mordashova exceeded 90 percent of Crew Gold, amounted to 215 million
dollars.

In March 2011, Forbes published a new ranking of billionaires, in
in which Mordashov took 29th place, and his fortune was estimated at 18.5
billion dollars. According to the magazine, he ranked second
among the richest people in Russia. Structures next month
Severstal bought for 291 million rubles the former Karelian
the residence of the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin "Shuyskaya Chupa",
intended to be used as a tourist attraction.

Mordashov was awarded medals of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland I
(1999) and II (1995) degree, Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Prince
Daniel of Moscow III degree (2003). Has an honorary doctorate
degree from St. Petersburg University of Engineering and Economics
(2001) and Northumbria University (2003).

Mordashov is a laureate of a number of professional competitions. By
results of 2001, the Expert RA rating agency recognized
Mordashov as the most professional manager of the federal
level. He won in the nomination "Public activity in
Entrepreneurship” international competition
"Entrepreneur of the Year - 2003", which was organized by the company
Ernst & Young. In 2003, BusinessWeek magazine included Mordashov in
list of 25 prominent European managers, entrepreneurs,
financiers, politicians and innovators of the year in the category "best
managers." In September 2004, Mordashov took fifth place in
rating of business leaders in Russia, compiled by the Kommersant newspaper and
Russian Managers Association.

Mordashov is married second marriage. He divorced his first wife Elena,
having taken the post of General Director of Severstal, and married a second time - to one of
their subordinates. From his first marriage he has a son, Ilya, born in 1985
birth. In 2001, the ex-wife published an open "Letter
to all women, "in which she told how Mordashov left her,
his companion from his student years, and ruthlessly infringed
the material rights of her and her son. In 2002, Elena Mordashova filed a
court against the former spouse, demanding the payment of alimony in the amount of
a quarter of his income and half of the shares of Severstal. Win the process to her
failed, the court recognized the agreement signed in 1996 as legal:
according to him, his wife and son got an apartment in Cherepovets, a car and

Mordashov's money savings, and he left himself

stock

Severstal

Mordashov has three sons from his second marriage.

Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

85% of the shares of Vorkuta-ugol are owned by the Severstal holding. Alexei Mordashov owns 79% of the holding's shares... On February 25 at 14.22, at a depth of 780 meters, two methane explosions and a rock burst occurred in the Severnaya mine, followed by a fire. There were 110 people underground at that moment. Four miners died, nine were injured and carbon dioxide poisoning. Communication with 26 miners was lost.

This is how this tragedy began, which was compared with the death of the Kursk submarine. People from the mine were not rescued. Moreover, lost five rescuers. The accident was called the most difficult in the history of the industry. Due to the high concentration of methane in the mine, local explosions continued to occur.

They want to restore the flagship mine in six months. It doesn't bother anyone that hundreds of people have died there since 1961. And the miners themselves want to restore the mine. How else can they survive in Vorkuta?

Russia is perhaps the only country where piecework is used in underground coal mining, rather than hourly wages. As a result, we have human greed multiplied by human stupidity.

STUDENT OF CHUBAIS

Alexey Mordashov was born in Cherepovets in 1965. His father graduated from the Gorky Polytechnic Institute with a degree in electrical engineering, worked at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

Parents were not zealous in raising Alyosha. They didn't have time for that, and the boy didn't bother either. Calm, independent child. At school, Mordashov was correct, classmates unanimously elected him the head of the class. The class teacher cited Lesha so often as an example that at some point he was nicknamed Template.

Komsomolets and future member of the CPSU Alexei Mordashov graduated with honors from the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute, where he met Anatoly Chubais, who taught there. After the first course, he came to him as an assistant to the department. Obviously, this was the first success of the future "steel king".

At that time, Alexei actively attended the "circle of young economists", which was headed by Chubais. This circle included such people as Alexei Kudrin, Pyotr Mostovoy, Vladimir Kogan, whose names would soon become known throughout Russia. At the same time, Mordashov did not get lost against their background. Chubais even persuaded him to go to graduate school and stay in Leningrad, but Alexei always believed that it was better to be the first guy in the village than the second in the city, and returned home.

GODFATHER

There he got a job as a senior economist at a metallurgical plant. The young specialist immediately attracted the attention of management, who sent him for an internship at the Austrian steel company VoestAlpine. But there Mordashov quarreled with the son of the Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR Serafim Kolpakov. It came to a fight. Kolpakov demanded that the general director of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, Yuri Lipukhin, immediately dismiss the insolent from the plant. But he defended his employee.

Mordashov was very lucky - Lipukhin's wife liked him. And when the time came for the corporatization of ChMK, it was she who persuaded her husband to trust the 27-year-old financial director. As a result, Yuri Lipukhin was left without a position and without a plant.

In 1996, Mordashov became the general director of the Severstal company managing the plant, and Lipukhin took over as chairman of the board of directors. Management accumulated 43% of the shares bought from employees in Severstal-Invest, and later transferred them to another structure - Severstal-Garant.

At first, according to Lipukhin, the partners agreed on equal shares in this company.

“After he became a director, he and his friends went to some islands, walked for a week. And when he returned, he came and said: it’s equally not quite normal for me, give you 49%, and 51% for me, ”Lipukhin later said. - I didn't care. I said, come on, I agree.

When net income rose from $111 million to $453 million in 2000, disagreements arose over where to put the money. “In the spring of 1999, Mordashov arbitrarily, without my knowledge, bought back 17% of the shares that belonged to Severstal-Invest,” said Lipukhin. - I went up to him and said: Alyosha, you can’t act like that. His answer was extremely short: it was not written anywhere.” Mordashov denies the existence of any gentlemen's agreements.

Yuri Lipukhin was his godfather when Alexei decided to convert. In 2011, the veteran died of a heart attack in Canada; his son Victor is in charge of his affairs. Mordashov also headed JSC Severstal, which served as the basis for the creation of the diversified holding Severstal Group. Industrial assets gradually passed into his ownership - shares of the St. Petersburg, Tuapse and Vostochny ports, coal mines, railway cars, the Kolomna Diesel Locomotive Plant, UAZ ...

TANKS ARE NOT AFRAID OF MUD

How did the Cherepovets oligarch end up in Vorkuta?

The expansion of the Mordashov empire is not limited to the borders of the region. At one time, he even tried to buy the Krivorozhstal plant, but failed in Ukraine.

Speaking specifically about OAO Vorkutaugol, Severstal acquired the state-owned stake at an auction in 2003. Thus, the holding guaranteed itself the required volume of coal supplies. And this is another diamond in the crown. In general, Mordashov burst into the ranks of the newest oligarchs at great speed, pushing out such bison as Abramovich and Potanin. Thanks to the stranglehold in the Vologda region, he earned the nickname Iron Boy. And Mordashov himself says this about himself: "Tanks are not afraid of dirt."

WIVES

A separate conversation is the personal life of Mordashov. In 2001, Elena, the ex-wife of a billionaire, published an “Open letter to all women” in one of the newspapers.

Here are the quotes. “Many years ago I married a student Alyosha Mordashov. A son was born, life was very difficult for us. The child was seriously ill, everything fell on my shoulders - home, family, worries about my husband. During the day I nursed my son, and in the evenings I worked as a cleaner ... I earned money for our apartment.

And five years later, Alexei Mordashov became a millionaire and owner of factories, newspapers, steamships. And he left. Then he divided the property, as it should be for a rich husband: his wife - a miserable apartment, an old "nine". For himself - everything he owns ... There could be no question of justice.

He said: “And you can’t think. Try to encroach on at least something of mine - I will deprive you of everything left, I will take your son away from you. You don’t want Ilya to suffer without you, do you?” I had no doubt then that one day I could "wake up" next to my own head...

During a divorce in 1996, an apartment in Cherepovets, a VAZ-2109 car and a small amount of money went to the wife and child. Alimony for the maintenance of their common child, Ilya (b. 1985), was paid by the entrepreneur in the amount of 106 times the minimum wage (in 2003, the minimum wage was 600 rubles). That is 63,600 rubles.

Elena tried in court to obtain the right to a share in the property of her ex-husband, but achieved nothing.

Elena also became Mordashov's new wife, with whom he had a real office romance. She worked as an accountant at Severstal. They collided in the corridors and on the stairs, swam together in the pool on adjacent paths, and in June 1997 they got married.

“In September 1999, our son Cyril was born. Alexei was with me during childbirth, holding my hand. The next morning, he gave me pearl earrings and a necklace, - later said the second wife of Mordashov. - A few days before 2001, I gave Alexei, as he himself says, the best New Year's gift in his life - his son Nikita ... Alexei simply adores kids. He is a very gentle dad."

Now Forbes reports that Mordashov already has six children. And his new girlfriend's name is Larisa.

The hot-tempered nature of Alexei Mordashov makes itself felt from time to time. So, once he made a scandal to the employees of the business terminal of Vnukovo-3 airport, which he used for his flights along with Yuri Luzhkov and Anatoly Chubais. The oligarch was indignant that one of his “girlfriends”, who accompanied him on the flight, had a buckle broken on a ladies’ backpack. Because of this, the "steel king" gave a dressing down to the airport staff, demanding to pay "a piece of bucks" for the damage.

As a businessman, he reached his peak in 2008, when Forbes estimated his fortune at $ 21.2 billion, and in the ranking of the richest people in the world, he ranked 18th. But the onset of the financial crisis spoiled these figures so much that a year later Mordashov was in 122nd place with $4.3 billion. But it's okay, you can live. Moreover, now it has risen again - to $13 billion.

In a nutshell, the reputation of the Iron Boy can be described as follows: a talented manager who is not afraid to make non-standard decisions. This tenacity was very useful in the conditions of the wild market that was emerging in Russia. And if necessary, Mordashov will go over the heads, as he did with his godfather and ex-wife. What can we say about the miners?

Aleksey Mordashov, like a rocket, burst into the closed club of Russian oligarchs with incredible speed. Displaced from the leading positions and. Mordashov was called the "iron boy", paying tribute to the stranglehold of the "newest oligarch".

CEO of one of the largest metallurgical enterprises in Russia. A media tycoon who controls the media in the Vologda Oblast. One of the richest people in Russia.

Childhood and youth

Alexey Aleksandrovich Mordashov was born on September 26, 1965 in the city of Cherepovets, Vologda Region. Nationality Russian. The family of the future oligarch has a century-long history of workers of the “Fedoseevsky woodworkers-toys” from the Volga region. The works of the Mordashev family are exhibited at the Museum of Folk Toys in Sergiev Posad.

Alexei's father, Alexander Mordashov, the only one of the three brothers in the family, did not continue the family business. After graduating from the Gorky Polytechnic Institute, my father worked as an electrical engineer at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant. In the same place, in the equipment department, Alexei's mother, Maria Fedorovna, worked.

He studied well at school, loved the exact sciences. According to former teachers, diligent and diligent. Mordashov was set as an example to other students, for which the guys nicknamed the boy "Template". After graduating from school, he successfully entered the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute. Graduated with honors. I went to lectures taught at the same institute. He remembers the "young reformer" with gratitude for the knowledge he gained about economic mechanisms.

The scientific career of the young graduate was not attractive, he did not go to graduate school. Since Mordashov did not have acquaintances in the Northern capital for patronage for a good job, after graduating from the institute he returned to his native Cherepovets. He went to work at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, where the connections and good name of his parents allowed him to take the place of a senior economist in the labor organization department.

In 1988, Mordashov left the plant for three months for an internship in Austria. The director of ChMK, Yuri Lipukhin, noticed a savvy economist. In 1992, Alexey Mordashov became the financial director of the plant. The appointment caused a negative reaction from the workers, but Lipukhin quickly suppressed discontent with his authority.

Severstal

At this time, privatization began in Russia. Lipukhin entrusted Mordashov to deal with a new unfamiliar phenomenon. The young economist set to work with zeal. He busied himself with buying vouchers and shares from factory workers. Yes, he succeeded so much that in the end the management of the plant "was left with a nose."

The scheme was simple: they created the Severstal-invest structure (86% of the shares belonged personally to Mordashov), which buys vouchers and plant shares from workers. Severstal-invest earned money to buy shares by reselling metal to the west. The metal, in turn, was bought by Severstal-invest for a penny from the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant. To make the workers more accommodating when selling vouchers, the plant did not pay wages for six months. The result of the privatization was Mordashov's possession of 83% of the shares of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

The former director Lipukhin considers Aleksey Mordashov, despite the "virtuoso trick" of the former subordinate, a good owner of the plant. Severstal is one of the leaders in the iron and steel industry.

As General Director of Severstal, Mordashov set about reforming the plant. Brought in new professionals. I got rid of the ballast of unprofitable enterprises that are on the balance sheet of Severstal. Reduced the number of employees from 50 to 37 thousand people. The obsolete did not begin to be restored - closed. Launched modern technological lines. Followed the demand of the world market. Raised the share of exports.

In December 2004, Severstal bought Ford's steel plant Rouge Industries lnc. The Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, the Izhora Pipe Plant in St. Petersburg, Karelsky Okatysh, and the Olenegorsk Mining and Processing Plant were acquired.

Personal life

The first time Alexey Mordashov married in the second year of the institute. The reason for the early marriage was the news of the bride's pregnancy. The wife's name was Lena. She was a 5th year student, a native of Irkutsk. In 1985, the son Ilya was born. The young family lived hard, the child was sick. Alexei worked part-time at the department and wrote term papers for students.

The marriage broke up in 1996. The reason was the work and frequent betrayals of Mordashov. After the divorce, the wife and son got a three-room apartment in Cherepovets, a car, monthly alimony in the amount of $1,000 and annual $6,000 for recovery.

In 2002, Elena sued her ex-husband demanding the division of property and the recovery of alimony from Mordashov in the amount of $ 20 million, believing that this was reasonable compensation for 10 years of family life. There were rumors in the press that Mordashov's business competitors were behind the lawsuit of the oligarch's ex-wife: Iskander Makhmudov and.

The first court decision seized the shares of Severstal, later, due to the intervention of influential officials, the court decision was canceled. Alexei Mordashov was ordered to pay child support in the amount of 10,600 rubles a month to his son.

Elena Mordashova received a lawsuit to recover a court fee in the amount of 213 million 790 thousand rubles. As a penalty, Elena's apartment in Moscow was seized. After the trial, Mordashov stated:

“I will not allow anyone to interfere with production. Shares are not just pieces of paper, they are an opportunity to influence the process on which the lives of thousands of people depend.”

Ilya did not come into contact with his father for many years. I took my mother's maiden name.

The Iron King entered into a second marriage in June 1997 with an economist at the Chelyabinsk Combine, also, coincidentally, Elena. Born in 1971, graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Textile Industry. In a marriage with Mordashov, children Cyril (1999) and Nikita (2000) were born.

Alexey Mordashov now

News appeared in the press that Mordashov had a new wife, whose name was Larisa. According to rumors, he already has a total of six children. The oligarch himself does not hide:

“Family has never been the main thing for me. I am the person for whom business comes first.”

Alexei Mordashov is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bolshoi Theater and leads a public life. Supports sports, does charity work. In June 2016, the President of Russia awarded Alexei Mordashov with the distinction "For Benevolence", noting his contribution to charity. The document is presented on the official website of legal information.

State

A billionaire from the Vologda Oblast is a tight-fisted. He does not own a yacht, he flies on a Severstal Yak-40 aircraft, wears cheap watches by the standards of the rich, and drives a serial car. At the same time, as of 2014, Alexey Mordashov ranks 12th in the ranking of the richest businessmen in Russia.

In 2016, he was named the richest man in Russia by Bloomberg.

Acts as CEO and Founder:

• Joint Stock Company Severstal Management
• CJSC "Severgroup"
• OOO "Algorithm"
• Capital LLC
• OOO "Regul"
• LLC "Holding Mining Company"

Forbes, the main shareholder of Severstal, Alexei Mordashov, became the richest businessman in Russia for the first time. His net worth is $16.8 billion, $4 million more than last year's top Russian billionaire list, NOVATEK founder Leonid Mikhelson, who came in second. Third place is still occupied by the owner of the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works Vladimir Lisin (16.1 billion).

It was Mordashov's face that appeared on the cover of the very first issue of Forbes magazine, published in Russia in 2004, although at that time he was only 9th in the "golden hundred" of oligarchs. In an interview with the publication, Mordashov then said that he became a “steel magnate” gradually: he himself comes from Cherepovets, when choosing a profession, he followed in the footsteps of his parents, who worked at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

www.uznayvse.ru

In early childhood, he was diagnosed with a serious congenital injury, and, by his own admission, he already knew for sure that he would not be a pilot or an astronaut. At school, Mordashov, in his own words, was the right boy, classmates unanimously elected him the head of the class. The class teacher so often cited Lesha as an example and urged students to look up to Mordashov that at some point Lesha was jokingly nicknamed Template.

Later, Mordashov graduated from the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute, in 1988 the young specialist returned to his native city and began his career at the plant, to which his relatives gave their whole lives. The future oligarch began as a senior economist, successfully moving up the career ladder. At the age of 27, he was noticed by the director of the plant, Yuri Lipukhin, and in 1993 instructed him to take up the privatization of the enterprise. Three years later, the company Severstal-invest, created by Lipukhin, bought out 43% of the plant's shares, and in the late 1990s Mordashov moved Lipukhin from the post of director of the plant to the position of chairman of the board of directors, and in 1999 bought out 17% of the plant's shares.

www.uznayvse.ru

Despite the Vologda origin, Mordashov is considered to be a "St. Petersburg team". He is one of the Northwestern oligarchs who showed up in Moscow after Putin's inauguration. Alexei Mordashov was brought closer to Vladimir Putin by his friendship with St. Petersburg oligarch Vladimir Kogan.

According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, financial market participants speak positively about Mordashov, emphasizing that he "did not rob the country, earning money on sad loans-for-shares auctions and other speculations." As analysts emphasize, it was Mordashov who actively supported Russia's entry into the WTO, and it was his recommendation that President Putin took into account in this matter. Russian metallurgists and Mordashov personally benefited greatly from the devaluation of the ruble, increasing revenue and profitability.

Kommersant.ru

Director of IK Forum Roman Parshin noted in an interview with MK that the growth of Mordashov's well-being is due to the fact that steel prices are rising, while he did not rule out the influence of the company's strong lobbying resource.

The price and demand for steel directly determine Severstal's profits and Mr. Mordashov's income. Severstal's revenue in the first half of 2017 grew by 38.1%. At the same time, the lobbying resource also works well for Severstal: quite recently, at the end of July, Gazprombank sold Severstal the rights to claim the debt of Metal Group LLC for 12 billion rubles and sold it for half its value. By the way, Metal Group, in turn, owns a license to develop the central part of the Yakovlevsky iron ore deposit - this is a tasty morsel for any metallurgical enterprise, because the ore mined there does not require enrichment. So to say, the "golden grail", or rather, steel: 9.6 billion tons of excellent quality ore.

At the end of spring, Aleksey Mordashov's yacht "Lady M" caused a sensation among European journalists. The ship, worth more than $50 million, has docked at several European ports. So, in the Spanish city of Malaga, it has become a real attraction. Still, a 65-meter three-deck ship with a helipad, six double guest cabins and seven double cabins for 14 crew members has a maximum speed of 28 knots (51 km / h) and is able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 8 days.

It is also known about Mordashov that he is interested in poetry, painting, and is fond of active winter sports, in particular, skiing.

Lenta.ru

The first time the owner of Severstal got married at the age of 19, when he was still in his 2nd year at the institute. His chosen one was 5-year student Elena, originally from Irkutsk. Soon they had a son. In 1996, Alexey and Elena divorced. According to the ex-wife, due to the rapid career growth of Alexei, the big money that accompanied their appearance of permissiveness and his betrayals. In 2002, a woman tried through the courts to obtain a share in the capital of her ex-spouse, but to no avail. The court did not grant her request.

www.uznayvse.ru

The second wife of the oligarch, a few years later, was his colleague, economist Elena, who worked in the accounting department of the plant. Soon they officially got married. The couple had two sons: in 1999 - Cyril, in 2000 - Nikita.

24smi.org

In 2015, Forbes reported that the billionaire already had a new life partner, whose name is Larisa. He allegedly also had new heirs. However, this information was not confirmed either by the oligarch himself or by his representatives.