Full name:

Mikhelson Leonid

Mikhelson Leonid Date of Birth

11 August 1955

Mikhelson Leonid Citizenship

Russia

Mikhelson Leonid Professional field/official position

• Chairman of the Board and Shareholder of Novatek
• Chairman of the Board and Shareholder of Sibur Petrochemical Holding.

Mikhelson Leonid biography

MIKHELSON Leonid Viktorovich (b. 1955 in Kaspiysk), born into a Jewish family, graduated from the Kuibyshev Civil Engineering Institute with a degree in civil engineering in 1977. After that, he worked as the superintendent of the construction trust in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug of the Tyumen Region near the city of Surgut at the construction of the first line of the Urengoy-Chelyabinsk gas pipeline.

• In 1984, he became the chief engineer of the Ryazantruboprovodstroy trust.
• In 1987, he headed the Kuibyshevtruboprovodstroy trust. Later in 1991, the trust became the first privatized joint-stock company in the region and changed its name to Samara People’s Enterprise Nova. Until 1994, Mikhelson was the managing director of it.
• In 1994, Nova came under the control of the Novafininvest management company, and Mikhelson became its CEO.
• As of 2019, Leonid Mikhelson was the richest Russian with a fortune of $24 billion. Mikhelson is one of many Russian oligarchs named in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017.

• In 1991, “Kuybyshevtruboprovodstroy” was privatized, and then turned into a joint stock company “Samara national enterprise “Nova”. Mikhelson headed it till October 1994 and then moved to the post of general director of the management company “Novafininvest”, one of the assets of which was the “Nova”.
• “Novafininvest” began to engage in gas production. Mikhelson began buying up shares of association “Purneftegazgeologia, whichowned the license on several sites with large reserves of gas, organized the creation of several new oil and gas enterprises in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. Finally with the active assistance of Joseph Levinsohn (who moved from the post of administrator in “Purneftegazgeologia” to the post of vice-governor of the district) NovaTEK was created which in 1996 began producing oil and gas on the first of its three main fields – East Tarkosalinskoye. In 2002 the operation in theYurkharovskoye deposit began, in 2004 – in the Khancheyskoye.
• Immediately after the establishment of NovaTEK, Mikhelson began to attract investors in the company capital and to organize partnerships. In the spring of 2002 an agreement was reached with the Itera by Igor Makarov in order to merge oil and gas assets, but soon the company refused the deal without explanation. Then Mikhelson planned to sell a blocking stake in NovaTEK to the French Total. However, this transaction was not approved by FAS.
• As a result, Mikhelson preferred the IPO version, and in July 2005, 19% stake in NovaTEK was posted at the LSE. Investors bought shares worth about $ 1 billion, and Mikhelson, received 335 million dollars for his 6.6%. Then there was another deal – the sale of 19.99% stake in Gazprom.
• Mikhelson owns about 75% shares of the large bank of Samara – OAO “First United Bank (“Pervobank”), which was founded in 2006 through the merger of the Nova Bank and the Bank “Samara credit” by Andrei Ishchuk.
• Mikhelson was awarded the order of Badge of Honor.
• Hobbies – volleyball. Mikhelson supports the volleyball team “Nova”. He is a sponsor of the soccer team “Wings of Soviets.”

Mikhelson Leonid family

He is married, has a daughter

Mikhelson Leonid crimes

Corrupt relations with Russian top officials.

1. Loyal officials and close partners in power supposedly help Mikhelson to absorb new assets for Novatek. So, in the early 1990s, Mikhelson met Joseph Levinson, who headed the Purneftegazgeologiya company, which had gas reserves in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Purneftegazgeologiya did not have money for the development of these reserves, therefore Mikhelson’s company was engaged in Purneftegazgeologiya projects in exchange for the shares of firms holding licenses for gas and oil deposits in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The Purneftegazgeologiya field reserves were estimated at 235 million tons of oil. As a result, these assets became the basis of Novatek’s business. In 2001, Mikhelson became the owner of Purneftegazgeologiya. From 1996 to 2005, Levinson was the first deputy governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In 2009, Levinson became a member of the board of Novatek.
2. In 2009, a member of Putin’s inner circle Gennady Timchenko, the well-known head of Gunvor oil trader, became a shareholder of Novatek. In partnership with Timchenko, Mikhelson acquired Sibur, the largest petrochemical holding in Eastern Europe, and a few other enterprises. The purchase of enterprises in partnership with Timchenko was supposedly due to lobbying the interests of Michelson and Timchenko by local authorities. For example, in 2015, the government of Bashkortostan held an auction to buy shares of the only producer of terephthalic acid in Russia, Polyef. The local LLC Rebus was recognized as the initial winner. However, later the government of Bashkiria and Rebus LLC terminated the already concluded contract, and Sibur became the owner of the Polyef assets. The sale of Polyef shares was the responsibility of the Ministry of Land and Property Relations of Bashkiria. Noteworthy, that before the sale of Polyef, the head of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov had met with Leonid Mikhelson. There is a lot of information in the media about the talks between the head of Bashkortostan and Mikhelson.
3. Michelson maintains good relations with other regional leaders. In 2010, 38-year-old Dmitry Kobylkin, who began his career at Purneftegazgeologiya and Khancheyneftegaz (a subsidiary of Novatek), was appointed governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The head of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug had been already suspected of loyalty to Mikhelson, and before the gubernatorial election, Kobykin had been called “a nominee from Novatek” in the media. Since then, Novatek has received a regime of special administrative and political favors in the region.

Mikhelson Leonid, links and material

Gennady Timchenko recently began to consolidate his stake in NovaTEK, while a team of NovaTEK managers headed by Leonid Mikhelson is losing its ground. Two subsidiaries of the Luxembourg Fund Volga Resources, which principal owner is Gennady Timchenko, claimed more than 20% stake in NovaTEK. Leonid Mikhelson is slackening: after the consolidation of more than 20% of NovaTEK, Volga can collect 24.99% of shares. The official share of Volga is 5.07%. But in May 2009, the Fund agreed to purchase another 13.13% from Cartagena Development Inc., which is controlled by management of NovaTEK – the deal has not been closed yet. Meanwhile, the block of shares of Leonid Mikhelson consists of 0.47% of personal share and 5.7% share through OOO “Levit” controlled by Mikhelson.