Full name:
Kuzmichev Alexei
Kuzmichev Alexei Date of Birth
15 October 1962
Kuzmichev Alexei Citizenship
Russia
Kuzmichev Alexei Professional field/official position
Russian oligarch, one of the main owners of the Alfa Group investment conglomerate.
Kuzmichev Alexei biography
KUZMICHEV Alexei Viktorovich (b. 1962 in Kirov) started at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (MISiS) in 1983, where he met German Khan and Mikhail Fridman, his future business partners. In his first year, Kuzmichev became a secretary of the Komsomol organization and joined the Communist Party. He finished the Institute in 1988 and until 1989, collaborated with Friedman, and later Khan in the cooperatives Courier, Alpha-photo, and Alpha-Eco (the last two offered household services, selling carpets, copy machines, and computers).
- In 1992, Alexey Kuzmichev suggested a plan to his partners to expand their businesses: he proposed them to start oil and metallurgy trading. By the end of the year, Crown Trade and Finance, Ltd. was established, which was later renamed to CTF Holdings.
- In 1996, the businessman left Alfa-Eco and became the chairman of the board of the new company Crown Resources, registered in Switzerland and involved in oil supplies. The years 2001-2002 were very challenging for the billionaire’s business: numerous negative events could have led him to the edge of bankruptcy. This led to the acquisition of Crown Resources from Alfa Group and its renaming to Expertica Corporation, which shifted from crude oil trading to deals with oil futures.
- In the early 2000s, Alexey Kuzmichev returned to Alfa-Eco and became the head of its Board.
- In 2006, the company got a new name, A1, and continued to oversee the commodity segment of the corporation. He also participated in the management of other companies of the Alfa Group.
- Kuzmichev led the Russian Technologies venture fund for a period, later he was a member of the advisory board of Altimo, an investment telecommunications company belonging to Alfa Group. Kuzmichev indirectly controls about 10 percent of the 6th world’s largest mobile operator, Vimpelcom, 18 percent of one of the largest Russian private banks, Alfa-Bank, and 11 percent of Russia’s largest food retail group, X5.
- In March 2013, he sold his stake in TNK-BP to the state-owned oil company Rosneft for $2.5 billion. In 2019, Alexei Kuzmichyov became the sixteenth in the rating of 20 richest Russian businessmen published by Forbes. In 2018, his net worth decreased by $100 million and amounted to $7.5 billion. Kuzmichev is a Russian citizen and resident of the United Kingdom: since 2001, he has been living in London.
- Since 2006 – Chairman of the Board of Directors in «Russian technologies». Under the leadership of Kuzmichev the venture fund “Russian Technologies», specializing in the development of nano-and biotechnology, already invested $ 4 million along with Intel Capital in the company «Elektrokom», which developed technologies to provide Internet access through an electrical outlet. In addition, Alexey Kuzmichev is a member of the Board of Directors of Altimo, and a member of the Board of Directors of Alfa Finance Holdings S. A. (Oil and financial assets). The company owns stakes in the banking, oil and telecommunications sectors.
- As of 2009, Kuzmicheva was reported to have a fortune of 3.05 billion and was ranked 17th among Russian billionaires, according to the magazine “Finance”.
- He is deeply interested in Mesopotamian history and is currently in talks with the U.S. occupation authorities in Iraq to fund the restoration of ancient Babylon buildings.
www.peoples.ru, www.oligarhi.ru
Kuzmichev Alexei family
He is married and has one son
Kuzmichev Alexei crimes
He has been involved in raider seizures of businesses, supported the Saddam Hussein regime, and may have been involved in the Kremlin's interference in the US presidential election.
Alfa-Eco was at the center of a scandal involving raider attacks in the late 90s and early 2000s. The Achinsk Alumina Refinery (AGK) faced bankruptcy proceedings in 1996, and the court appointed Gleb Fetisov, president of Alfa-Eco, as an interim manager. In 1999, with police support, Alfa-Eco forcibly took over AGK.
Kuzmichev Alexei, links and material
Kommersant # 165 (2768) on 12.09.03
In the late 90s and early 2000s, the company «Alfa-Eco» founded by Mikhail Fridman, Herman Han, and Alexei Kuzmichev was involved in criminal raid captures. They forcibly took over the Achinsk Alumina Refinery (AAF) with police support in 1999. In March 2001, creditors of the Achinsk plant signed a settlement agreement, and AAF became a part of «Rusal». The income of “Alfa” from the resale of the Achinsk Alumina Refinery in 2000 was 680%.
In summer 2000, «Alfa-Eco» bought around 42% of the shares from the small shareholders of “Alfabet “and attempted to seize the factory. Although the attempt failed, the plant manager sold his stake in IC «Rinaco», which was affiliated with a group of MDM. Later, MDM purchased the package of “Alfa”.
In May 2000, the structure of Alfa-Eco Group acquired a 50% stake in a trading house that produces vodka “Smirnov”. The management of Alfa tried to negotiate with the owner of the company, Boris Smirnov, for the transfer of the remaining 50%, but were unsuccessful. Subsequently, the leaders of «Alfa-Eco» seized the company.
JSC «Moscow Oiled Industrial Complex» (MOIC) was acquired by Alfa-Eco using a similar pattern: shareholder of Alfa-Eco, Mikhail Bezelyansky, and several top managers bought about 24% stake in MOIC, and then took control over the company. “Alfa-Eco» also acquired PPP «Volga» and «Kama» through their bankruptcies.
“The secret of the company» # 6 (141) from 02.2006 year
Kuzmichev's involvement in raid captures has been periodically reported in the press. The company “Alfa-Eco» has focused on buying distressed assets and reselling them for several years. It earned 253% on the Volgograd Steel Works “Red October” in 2001. In the same year, the company made a profit of 161% by reselling shares and payables of Korshunov mining-and-processing integrated works. “Alfa-Eco” also earned 79% on the sale of troubled assets of the company TAGMET .
In 2004-2005, Alfa-Eco Group bought a stake in Sun Interbrew for around $ 100 million (21% stake), and then pressured the largest shareholder, the Belgian company InBev, to buy this package for almost 260 million euros. Then InBev paid about 60 thousand from that money to the structure of Kuzmichev so that it would not acquire shares of SUN Interbrew later.
In 1997 «Alfa-Eco» acquired the debts of the West Siberian Metallurgical Plant from Kredobank and customs.
The company of Kuzmichev gained controlling stake in Yekaterinburg brewery «Patra»(in 2005 «Alfa» sold to “Patria» Heineken) in a capture-like way. “Alfa” tried to use the similar scheme towards VimpelCom and MegaFon, which blocking shares the group obtained, as well as towards the company «Eurocement» – its head Filaret Galchev had been fighting off Kuzmichev and his business partners for a long time.
www.Alfa.perm.ru on 17.09.99
They did not talk openly whether Kuzmichev was engaged in criminal business in the late 90’s, as he stayed in the shadow then, but there was talk that his closest business partners were – Mikhail Fridman and Herman Khan. For example, they rumored that Mikhail Fridman was involved in organizing the transit of drugs from Southeast Asia through Russia and Europe. There were people among his contacts considered to be criminal thieves in law – Otari Kvantrishvili, Mr. Timofeev (Silvester) and Mr. Petrov (Petrik), Mark Rich and Gregory Luchansky. In addition, Friedman is accused of voucher fraud. As the media said, the company Alfa-Eco coverted drug related operations in the consortium, and its international department was headed by Kuzmichev. Founders of “Alfa-Eco» founded a number of other companies at a time, including « Harmaty and Co » in Hungary, and« Alfa-Eko» in the Czech Republic. Those companies were the links of one chain, according to which the transit of drugs from South-East Asia to Europe had been conducted.
There were excerpts from the report of the FSB published on the Internet, due to which it became known that the company “Alfa-Group» along with Kuzmichev decided to transfer all assets to offshore. Alex Kuzmichev together with Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven, and Herman Khan were the companies’ owners, including the one which had been established in order to accumulate financial assets of the group – Gibraltar AB Holdings Limited. The offshore structures and foreign trade activities by “Alfa” were controlled by Alexei Kuzmichev. Those business schemes conducted through offshore companies were extremely complicated; thus the state supervisory bodies yet have not managed to count the exact amount of credits received by all «Alfa Group’s» subsidiaries and offshore companies from the Western credit institutions.
www.flb.ru.info from 16.12.2002
The name of Alexei Kuzmichev was exaggerated in the media in 2002, after the sinking of the tanker “Prestige”, and oil spilling on the Atlantic coast. The tanker was owned by a Liberian company (Mare Shipping Incorporation), the cargo belonged to the trading company “Crown Resources” – Swiss legal entity – one of the subsidiaries of the Alfa-Group. Chairman of the Board of Directors of «Crown» was Alex Kuzmichev; he was also a member of the Supervisory Board of Alfa-Group. When the tanker got sank, Kuzmicheva and his colleagues were accused of illegal operations, and using shadow schemes, which allowed tax evasion and super-profit gaining.
Additionally, the "Crown" was involved in two scandals related to the oil and finance. First, in London, the "Crown" accused two traders of receiving secret payments from clients, partners, and brokers, and of illegally withdrawing money through offshore companies. In response to the accusations, financier of "Crown" Dmitry Pluzhnikov claimed that Alexei Kuzmichev had authorized the creation of a special cash fund and an offshore company to accumulate funds for additional payments to successful employees. Kuzmichev, however, denied having knowledge of these actions. Secondly, the American group "Norex" sued "Alfa-Group", alleging the use of offshore companies to sell oil abroad. TNK and "Crown", as part of "Alfa", along with "Total" companies, were implicated in a scheme where TNK sold oil to "Crown", which then sold it to "Total" at a low price to deceive customs and tax authorities. Subsequently, "Total" sold the oil back to "Crown" at the same low price, and then repurchased it at the world price. The money from "Crown" was channeled to offshore companies, bypassing various state regulatory authorities.
Russian Forbes, May 2009
In 2006, Kuzmichev launched a project to market Russian oil internationally: the first futures contract REBCO (Russian Export Blend Crude Oil) was released on the NYMEX in October. Kuzmichev, in collaboration with experts from NYMEX, proposed the Russian government to establish an oil exchange in Russia. The International Commodity Exchange was set up in St. Petersburg, but neither Kuzmichev's company Expertica nor NYMEX were involved.
"Kommersant» # 204 / P (4259) on 02.11.2009
Kuzmichev was implicated in the situation involving the mobile operator OAO MegaFon, where Altimo (where Kuzmichev is a member of the Board of Directors) is one of the owners. MegaFon is a telecommunications infrastructure of the Russian holding company Alfa Group, which owns 25.1% of MegaFon. Additionally, the Scandinavian TeliaSonera owns a 43.8% stake, and Alisher Usmanov holds a 31.1% stake. At Altimo's urging, "Megafon" decided to merge with the Turkish company Turkcell, officially to enhance control over joint assets and their liquidity. Usmanov, however, views this as a disastrous initiative and considers it a raid on their business. In November last year, he began discussions with Russian authorities about the potential exchange of his stake in MegaFon for Rostelecom shares, expressing concerns that Altimo and TeliaSonera might dilute his stake in MegaFon if it merges with Turkcell, as his structures had no substantial stake in Turkcell, unlike Altimo and TeliaSonera.
