Table of names

Mikhail Fridman

Mikhail Fridman is the Chairman of Alfa Group which holds TNK-BP and AlfaBank. He’s 39, was born in 1964 in Lvov, on the western border of Ukraine. Fridman's first entrepreneurial stints, which he worked at while attending the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, included window washing, running a discotheque, and scalping Moscow theater tickets -- all illegal under Soviet rule. When then-Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev passed a series of economic reforms relaxing the prohibitions on private business, Fridman and his classmates started a co-op, arranging for courier delivery of goods and a hodgepodge of other services. In 1988, Fridman set up his own photo cooperative, Alfa Foto, and subsequently ALFA/EKO, a commodities trading firm, which gave him the capital to establish AlfaBank, today one of Russia's largest banks. He recruited a Russian foreign trade minister to head up the bank. After a series of profitable debt securities deals, Fridman's wealth grew exponentially, positioning him to acquire significant oil interests in Russia.

In 2003 merged his oil company, TNK, with BP-quite an achievement, considering that six years prior BP was in a bitter fight with Fridman, protesting his methods of taking over a partly BP-owned oilfield. In 2006 Fridman paid more attention to his telecom assets; bought 13% stake in Turkcell, Turkey's largest cellular operator, adding to the group's stakes in Vimpelcom and Megafon (Russia), Kyivstar (Ukraine), Golden Telecom (USA), Buztel and Uzmacom (Uzbekistan).

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  41 yrs. Old
  
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  50^th richest man
  
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  1999: Founded Alfa Group with college friends German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichov, now a diverse conglomerate with oil, retail, telecom and banking interests.
  
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  Strong Kremlin connections, including a former subordinate who now serves as a political adviser to Putin.
  
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  2003: Merged his oil company, TNK, with BP
  
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  2005: Fridman bought a 13% stake in Turkcell, Turkey's largest cellular operator, adding to the group's stakes in Vimpelcom and Megafon (Russia), Kyivstar (Ukraine), Golden Telecom (USA), Buztel and Uzmacom (Uzbekistan).
  

http://www.forbes.com//lists/2006/10/FND3.html

http://www.alfagroup.org/142/16984/About.aspx

More bio info:
Estimated Worth:

$9.7 billion – up from 4.3 billion

Current Position:

Chairman, Alfa Group

Major Holdings:

TNK-BP (formerly Tyumen Oil) and AlfaBank

Other Interests:

Telecom businesses Golden Telecom and Vimpelcom; retailer Trade House Perekriostock, which operates a leading chain of supermarkets, and vodka producer Smirnov Trade House

Political Connections:

Fridman's partner, Peter Aven, was Russia's minister of foreign economic affairs. Fridman was one of the Big Seven, the original group of oligarchs who bankrolled the 1996 reelection of President Boris Yeltsin and who claimed to then control 50 percent of Russia's assets.

New Plays:

Fridman recently sold 50 percent of Tyumen Oil to British Petroleum in a landmark $6.75 billion deal, creating TNK-BP, the 10th-largest private-sector oil and gas company in the world in terms of production.

Lifestyle:

Fridman is known for keeping a low profile, although his Moscow flat is said to be larger than 12,000 square feet; Fridman's wife and two children live in Paris.

Notoriety:

The oil tanker Prestige, which sank off the Spanish coast in 2002 and released an oil slick that spread 250 miles, was chartered by a company owned by Fridman.

Mikhail Fridman is Chairman of the Supervisory Board and principal founder of Alfa Group Consortium, one of the leading business enterprises in Russia. He has built the Alfa Group into a market leader in Banking, Energy, Telecommunications and Retail sales. Fridman chairs the Board of Directors of two of the group’s leading companies — Alfa-Bank, which is one of Russia’s largest privately owned banks, and TNK-BP, formed by the historic joint venture between British Petroleum and Tyumen Oil Company, completed in 2003. Mr. Fridman also serves as member of the Board of Directors of VimpelCom, the second of three major market leaders in the Russia’s rapidly growing mobile communications market.
Mikhail Fridman is one of Russia’s most influential and successful business leaders. His strategies of acquisition, growth and integration have made the Alfa Group among the most attractive partners for international investment in Russia. The historic joint venture with British Petroleum, announced in the summer of 2003 was, at that time, the largest foreign investment deal in Russian history, valued at over US$7 billion.
The Group has significant investment in cellular communications providers VimpelCom (traded on NYSE, symbol: VIP) and MegaFon as well as Kyivstar, a leading cellular provider in Ukraine. In addition, the Group invests into fixed-line and internet provider — Golden Telecom (traded on NASDAQ, symbol: GLDN). Also, the Group invests in Turkcell, a leading GSM operator in Turkey (traded on NYSE and Istanbul Stock Exchange (IMKB)).
The Group’s other interests include Pyaterochka Holding N. V. (traded on LSE, symbol: FIVE), one of the largest discount grocery retailers in Russia in terms of sales, Perekrestok Group of Companies, which runs a leading chain of supermarkets in Russia, and Russian Technologies, a company focusing on the development of promising technologies.
The Group typically focuses on value-oriented, longer-term opportunities, primarily in Russia and the CIS, but also invests in other markets which form part of the Group’s strategic business objectives.
In November 2005 Mikhail Fridman was elected to Russia’s Public Chamber. The Chamber is comprised of business and social leaders who have made significant contributions to Russian life and oversees official bodies and reviews and advises on legislative initiatives undertaken by the government.
Fridman is a Member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations, and his achievements have been recognized by prestigious international publications and organizations in the world of finance and business. He was named to the list of “Europe’s Power 25” by FORTUNE in 2004, as well as the Financial Times list of the “2004 Leaders of the New Europe”. In 2003 Mikhail Fridman was honored with the Golden Plate Award of the International Academy of Achievement in Washington, presented personally by former US President Bill Clinton.
Mikhail Fridman started out in business while still a student at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. He graduated in 1986 and two years later founded Alfa Eco, a trading company out of which Alfa Group Consortium developed. Fridman was born in Lvov, Ukraine on 21 April 1964.