Originally Syndicated on May 18, 2023 @ 9:10 am
Over the past year, the metal magnate’s properties have lost $7.8 billion in value. But still, other Russian billionaires lost more in the last year. Maybe the fact that Vladimir Lisin was only sanctioned by Australia had an effect. So, with 18.4 billion dollars, he is now the richest person in Russia.
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The Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works, the First Freight Company, and the First Port Company are Lisin’s most important properties.
Does Vladimir Lisin have it?
The latest news about Vladimir Lisin sounds like a scam. He enjoys shooting sports and going hunting. At one point, he bought an old house in Scotland so he could hunt birds on the land that came with it. And 60 kilometers from Moscow, the oligarch made himself a home called Fox Hole. It has a safari park and an extra-class shooting complex, where sometimes competitions are held.
Not surprisingly, the billionaire was made president of the Russian Shooting Union, and in 2018, he was chosen president of the International Sports Shooting Federation (ISSF). So, the ISSF President’s Cup was held in Cairo in the fall of 2017. On the federation’s website, it stated that the president of the ISSF had established the prize fund, which had a total value of $835,000.
But while the competition was going on, the federation picked a new president: Luciano Rossi, an Italian who had been in second place for eight years. Lisin soon reneged on his pledge to pay the athletes the prize money. The International Sport Shooting Federation is now trying to find a new backer.
Diversifying Lisin’s Portfolio
Many people have said and written that Vladimir Lisin is stingy with his money. Maybe this way of thinking about money will make you a billionaire. However, there are moments when Uncle Scrooge-like eccentricities come off as merely incidental. For example, it is known that Vladimir Lisin, who was already worth a lot of money, suggested that two businessmen buy a business jet together so that they wouldn’t have to pay for its upkeep.
Lisin’s desire to keep money for himself can sometimes hurt his business partners. This is what happened to Nikolai Maksimov. In 2007, he sold half of his mining holding company, Maxi-Group, to Lisin’s structures to get money for business growth. When Maksimov got the first $300 million, he put it into the business and waited for the next $300 million, but NLMK wasn’t in a hurry to send it. He wasn’t in such a rush that the business had trouble with other debtors.
It turns out that NLMK waited for the situation at Maxi-Group to get worse before starting an audit and accusing Maximov’s team of taking money. Maximov was charged with abusing his power for some years, and in 2011, NLMK asked for him to be sent to a pre-trial detention centre. In 2019, the criminal case was closed, and a year earlier, Maxi-Group went bankrupt while NLMK was in charge. Many people thought that the story of Maxi-Group reminded them of the beginning of Vladimir Lisin’s business career when raiders often took over businesses.
The Future of Lisin’s Empire: Predictions and Prospects
The future tycoon joined the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant in the late 1980s as the deputy general director under Oleg Soskovets, who would later hold the position of deputy prime minister. At the time, there was a state monopoly on the sale of high-quality metal, so a shady plan was made to set up sources for the export of low-quality metal. Then Soskovets came to power and worked with President Yeltsin for a while. And his previous deputy got a job at Trans Commodities and Trans-Word Group (TWG), where he used the skills he had already learned.
The Cherny brothers, who with the aid of other organizations took control of the assets of Soviet metallurgy, are well-known for running this last business. Vladimir Lisin oversaw NLMK from TWG, but at some point, he moved the plant’s money to his own trade company, which was based in Ireland. How the tough Cherny brothers let him get away with such a trick is still a mystery. It’s also not clear where Lisin could get the money to buy back almost half of the plant’s shares from Americans like George Soros.
In this way, the version has the right to life, according to which, at NLMK, Vladimir Lisin is just a front for the people who own the shadows. This explains in part why he is cheap and shy. After all, you see, it’s amazing that the richest Russian businessman doesn’t even have his yacht. But if we assume that he gives the wealth to “who should,” then everything fits together. In this way, the version that Vladimir Lisin at NLMK is just a spokesman for the real shadow owners has the right to live.
Vladimir Potanin, who is the head of HC Interros and MMC Norilsk Nickel, came in second on the Forbes list with a wealth of $17.3 billion.
Pavel Durov, who made the Telegram messaging app, was in third place, which is probably not where he wants to be. Durov asked Forbes back in the spring not to call him a Russian businessman. The programmer left Russia in 2014, and his agent said that he wouldn’t be going back. Durov had already written a post with the telling title “Seven Reasons Not to Return.”
Global Expansion
Since then, Durov has become a citizen of the island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis and then of France. In the past few years, he has been living in Dubai, which is where Telegram is based. But Durov didn’t seem to belong on the list of UAE riches. In it, he was way ahead of four other people who have wealth between $2 billion and $4 billion. Forbes says Durov has about $15.1 billion in assets.
Even Leonid Mikhelson, who started the gas company Novatek, came in at number four with a $14 billion fortune. This is $10,900,000,000 less than a year ago. By the way, Mikhelson was first in 2016. The year 2022 was a good one for Novatek. LNG is still being sold in foreign markets, and NOVATEK has become the main competitor for the shares of foreign companies that have pulled out of the Sakhalin-2 project. Also, NOVATEK will gasify Kamchatka on behalf of the state. In exchange, it hopes to get a choice when gas production licenses are given out.
This time, Alexey Mordashov was in fifth place after falling from first. His wealth dropped by more than half in one year, from 29.1 billion to 13.2 billion. This is possible because the West has put sanctions on both Mordashov and Severstal, which are run by his family. Now, the businessman’s lawyers are doing everything they can to get the penalties lessened.
European courts received the right lawsuits. And it was announced the other day that Mordashov had left the capital of Rossiya Bank. West European lawmakers blamed Mordashov for owning a piece of Rossiya. Among other things, Bank Rossiya is criticized for having more offices in Crimea.
