Mikhail Fridman - "Alpha" - Empire

This time we are going to talk a little bit about another Russian dollar billionaire who is one of the hundred richest people in the world, Mikhail Fridman. The oligarch has owned and continues to own several of Russia's largest and best-known companies, including the Alfa Group financial-industrial consortium, TNK-BP and VimpelCom. Friedman's total fortune is estimated at $6.3 billion, which, according to some opinions, is a somewhat underestimated figure.

Mikhail Maratovich Fridman was born on April 21, 1964 in the city of Lvov in Western Ukraine (then the Ukrainian SSR) in a family of defense industry workers. Fridman spent his school years in his homeland, but decided to study at the institute in Moscow, choosing the department of non-ferrous and rare-earth metals of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys.

Immediately after graduation, in 1986, Friedman took a low-level position as a design engineer in the town of Electrostal, near Moscow, at a steelmaking plant of the same name. In the same year (according to some sources in '88) he started his first business with the unsophisticated name of "Courier."who did the window cleaning.

A little later, in 1989, together with his friend M.V. Alfimov, he used the money he earned to organize his first Alfa. "Alpha Photo."In the same year, the first Soviet-Swiss venture appeared "Alfa Eco"The company was a company that dealt with office equipment and environmental control of products, which was the starting point of the Alfa Group's history.

But Fridman did not stop at developing only Alf. From '95 to '98 he was a member of the directors of "Public Russian Television" (CJSC ORT). In 1996, he was included in the board of directors of another, no less large company, OAO "SIDANCO Oil Company. Two years later, Fridman tried his hand at a retail chain by joining the Board of Directors of Trade House Perekrestok.

In June 1998, the crisis began in Russia, and the businessman was already among the group of leaders of the country's largest financial and industrial corporations who met with the country's prime minister and who signed an appeal to their colleagues to support emergency measures aimed at sustaining the country, adopted by the president, the prime minister and the Central Bank. Incidentally, the crisis caught Friedman's main brainchild, Alfa Capital and Alfa Bank, in the act of merging. In contrast to many events of the time, the process was so successful that at the end of the August Default "Alfa" remained the only group, none of whose enterprises were noticeably affected.

At the beginning of the new century Friedman continued his active work. In addition to being a member of the board of directors of Trading House "Crossroads."The businessman was included in the Entrepreneurship Council under the Russian government and also topped the list of the 1000 most professional managers in Russia.

That same year, 2001, Friedman's field of vision included OJSC VympelCommunicationsThe merger with which was negotiated for a year, after which in 2002 the consortium acquired a strategic stake in the company.

Work with retailers was obviously close to Mikhail Fridman, so in the spring of 2005, Alfa Group acquired a controlling stake in X5 Retail Group N.V., which combined the largest food chains "Pyaterochka" and "Perekrestok.

In February 2008, Fridman relinquished the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alfa-Bank to his deputy, Peter Schmid, while retaining his seat on the Board of Directors. Then in May of last year he took over the position of TNK-BP's Chief Executive Officer, thereby taking over all executive positions in the company.

Now in the media, Mikhail Friedman appears as one of the richest men in the world. Last year, according to the popular American magazine Forbes, his fortune amounted to 6.3 billion dollars, which allowed him to take 71 place in the ranking of billionaires of the planet. The Russian version of the magazine put him in fourth place among Russian billionaires.

Mikhail Friedman is married and raises two daughters. The businessman's favorite pastime in his free time is traveling. He likes to drive himself and, for a while, was interested in jeep racing.

Biographical information is taken from public sources.