Mordashov Alexey

Full name:
Mordashov Alexey

Mordashov Alexey Date of Birth

26 September 1965

Mordashov Alexey Citizenship

Russia

Mordashov Alexey Professional field/official position

Chief executive of “Severstal group”
Chairman of the board of directors in “Power Machines”
the largest shareholder of “Arcelor”, a member of board of RSPP
Owner of PJSC Severstal

Mordashov Alexey biography

Mordashov Alexey Aleksandrovich was born on September 26, 1965 in Cherepovets in the Vologda area in workers’ family; Russian. In 1988 he graduated with excellence from the Leningrad Engineering-Economical Institute. During study he got acquainted with Anatoly Chubais.

From 1988 till 1989 – Senior Economist in maintenance and repair shop #1 of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant (CMP).
In 1989-1991 – Head of Bureau of Economics and Labor of MRS#1 at CMP.
In 1991-1992 – Deputy Director of planning department of CMP.
In 1992-1993 – Deputy Director of Economics and Finance at CMP.
Since 1993 – Financial Director of CMP (now CMP is renamed into Open Joint-Stock Company “Severstal”). Simultaneously the chairman of board of directors of joint-stock company “Severstal-Invest”. He was one of creators of the plant privatization program, and transition to active marketing practice in metal trading. Company “Severstal-Invest” was engaged in sale of rolled metal products, motor vehicles and the weapon, cultivation, processing and sale of fish, realtor and security-detective activity.
Since March, 1996 – chairman of board of “Severstal-holding” LLC (Cherepovets).
Since March, 1996 – chairman of board of directors of Joint-Stock Company “Severstal-invest” (Cherepovets).
Since September 1996 till June, 2002 – Chief Executive of “Severstal” OAO.
Since November, 1997 – chairman of board of directors in Metkombank (Cherepovets). He was a councilor of bank “Metallinvest”. Then he was trained on courses of managers in England (in the late nineties he completed the MBA program of Newcastle Business school (NBS) in the University of Northumbria (UNN, Great Britain).
Since June, 2000 – the councilor of directors of Joint-Stock Company «Izhora pipe factory», joint venture of «Izhora factories» OAO and “Severstal” OAO. In October, 2000 he was selected as a member of bureau of board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).
Since June, 2001 – coordinator of RSPP Working group.
From April 2001 till April, 2003 – member of the Supervisory board of «Industrial Construction Bank» (ICB).
Since June, 2002 – chairman of the board of directors of “Severstal” OAO.
Since 2002 – Chief Executive of “Severstal group” ZAO.
Since August, 2002 – the chairman of the board of directors of “SSM-Tyazhmash” LLC, subsidiary of “Severstal group” ZAO.
Since December, 2002 – the judicial arbitrator at the Commission on Ethics of RSPP created for settlement of corporate disputes.
In May, 2003 he was included in structure of Business Council at the government of the Russian Federation.
In December, 2003 he became the authorized representative of president Putin on presidential election on March, 14th, 2004.
In 2003, Forbes magazine listed Mordashov as the 348th richest person in the world, with a fortune of 1.2 billion dollars.
In February 2004, “Severstal” OAO announced that Mordashov controlled 82.75% of the stocks of “Severstal”.
Starting from June 2004, he served as a director of the bank “Rossiya” in St.-Petersburg.
In February 2006, “Finance” magazine valued Mordashov’s wealth at 6.0 billion dollars, ranking him tenth in Russia.
In March 2006, Mordashov was ranked 64th in the world by Forbes Magazine, with a fortune of 7.6 billion dollars.
He serves as a Board member of RDC «Expert institute» at Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).
He is also a member of the Advisory council for innovations under the Ministry of Industry and Science of the Russian Federation.
He has been honored with the order «For Merits for Country» of the I and II degrees.
He won the All-Russia competition of businessmen “Career-96”. In December 2000, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs named him the best businessman of the year.
He is fluent in English and German.
Mordashov is married for the second time and has three sons – one from the first marriage, and two from the second one.
He has a strong interest in poetry, painting, and active winter sports.
Source: http://www.anticompromat.org/

Mordashov Alexey, links and material

Source: www.rb.ru

By 2001, there were no compromising materials about Mordashov in the mass media. The only unpleasant stories were about his divorce and the ignominious alimony to his son. In July 2001, it was rumored that Mordashov was offered a position in the Russian government. However, Mordashov stated that he would have refused the offer, even if it had been made to him.

Source: «Forbes», 4/10/2004

In 2004, the media published materials accusing Mordashov of dishonest dealings in “Severstal”. The ex-general director of Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, Yury Lipuhin, who helped Mordashov in his career, was the source of this information. When Mordashov was the director of “Severstal”, the plant experienced an attempted raid capture by Trans-World Group, represented by well-known businessmen Vladimir Lisin, Mikhail Chernoy, and Oleg Deripaska. Mordashov resisted their attempts to persuade him to sell the plant and eventually convinced Lipuhin that the plant shares needed to be privatized to prevent outsiders from gaining control. The plant sold metal at low prices to the company “Severstal-Invest” which Mordashov used to buy vouchers and shares from workers, eventually becoming the owner of 51% of the shares of “Severstal”, with Lipuhin owning the remaining 49%.

In 1998, there was a conflict between two owners – Mordashov decided to diversify his business and began acquiring industrial assets such as stocks of ports in St.Petersburg, Tuapse and East port, coal mines, Kolomna diesel factory, and UAZ factory. Lipuhin opposed such diversification. In early 2001, Mordashov purchased 49% of “Severstal-Guarant” from Lipuhin at a significant discount, leading to resentment. During that period, Mordashov also had conflicts with the owner of GAZ, Oleg Deripaska, over Zavolzhsky motor factory, and fought for “Kuzbassugol” with Iskander Mahmudov, while the metallurgical market was divided with Alexander Abramov, the head of “Eurazholding”.

Source: "Forbes", 4/10/2004

During his youth internship in Austria, Mordashov had a disagreement with the son of the ferrous metallurgy minister, Serafim Kolpakov Sergey. The minister insisted on Mordashov being dismissed by Yury Lipuhin, but Lipuhin defended the young prospective employee at that time.

Source: "Moscow Komsomolets", 8/20/2001, "Vedomosti", 10/30/2002

In 2001, Mordashov's first spouse, Elena, claimed that Alexey Mordashov did not adequately support their son, interfered with her personal life, and pushed for her dismissal from work. In 2000, Mordashov declared an income of 80 million dollars, but soon denied the sum. His former wife sued for alimony and division of jointly acquired property, stating that Mordashov had been paying her $650 monthly for their son. Mordashova also demanded a share in her husband's business and engaged in a significant information war. The businessman believed that the claims were driven by competitors of the metallurgical holding company – the Ural mountain-metallurgical plant and "Sibal", particularly their owner Iskander Mahmudov, who was Mordashov's main contender in the metallurgical market at that time. In August 2001, Mordashov's former wife applied to the Nikulinsky Office of Public Prosecutor in Moscow, demanding that her former husband allocate 25% of his income for the education of their son from the first marriage. She claimed that Mordashov's underpaid alimony amounted to over half a billion dollars. The Office of Public Prosecutor managed to seize 32.5% of "Severstal" stocks as part of the claim. The claims from Mordashova for a quarter of her husband's income were deemed baseless by a Moscow court, and the attachment was removed from the property. The Cherepovets court then ruled in Mordashov's favor, concluding that he did not owe his former spouse 40 percent of shares of "Severstal", as she had claimed in the lawsuit. As a result, Elena Mordashova lost both cases.

Source: www.akado.com/news

During the 2004 presidential election, Alexey Mordashov served as Vladimir Putin's authorized representative. The support of the country's leader helped Mordashov establish the largest steel-making company in Russia, which held the largest assets abroad based on the Cherepovets plant.

Source: "Life", 2/9/2005

In February 2005, Alexey Mordashov caused a scene at Vnukovo-3 airport. He departed the plane with two accompanying female companions, and one of them discovered that she had lost a buckle from her handbag. Mordashov began behaving irrationally and loudly berated airport employees for about half an hour, demanding a payment of one thousand dollars for the lost buckle.

Source: Investments № 3(334) 01.02-07.02.2010

Alexey Mordashov attempted to merge his business with the metallurgical group Arcelor, but the company's owners rejected Mordashov's offer, and the group was acquired by Mittal Steel, referred to as 'aggressors' by Mordashov.

Source: "Vedomosti", 9/21/2006

In September 2006, Alexey Mordashov decided to reassume the position of general director at "Severstal" and conducted administrative reforms within the enterprise. He removed the hired manager, General Director Anatoly Kruchinin, from his position and later appointed him as the General Director of "Severstal. Russian steel". In April 2008, the management of "Severstal" divided into three divisions: "Severstal. Russian steel", "Severstal. Resources", and "Severstal International". Mordashov's return to the director position, according to his plan, was aimed at the success of the IPO. Kruchinin was an unknown figure in business, while Mordashov gained worldwide fame after attempting to become the largest owner of Arcelor. After a few months, Mordashov conducted an IPO in London, which was considered unsuccessful by observers.

Source: www.newsru.com from 6/9/2007

Because there were no more interesting activities to buy, Mordashov tried to diversify his business once again by showing interest in the main Russian manufacturer of equipment for the electric power industry, “Power machines”. The company “Severstal” then asked for permission from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to make the purchase. The stocks of “Power machines” were Mordashov's personal investment and were not related to the mountain-metallurgical company “Severstal”. Competing with Mordashov for “Power machines” were Victor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska.

Source: www.mfd.ru News

In December 2003, bank “Rossiya” announced that it would issue an additional 30 million rubles worth of shares to Alexey Mordashov’s “Severstal-group” at a price 20 times higher than the face value. This meant the holding would pay 600 million rubles for 9% of the bank's shares, which was more than its own capital of 616 million rubles. The General Director of “Rossiya” explained the high cost by considering the «occurrence of the foreign investor» in the bank's capital and its rapid growth (its assets and capital had tripled in a year). Experts viewed this valuation of a minority package as completely inadequate. The most likely reason for this unusual move was a break in relations with Industrial Construction Bank (ICB) and a shift of money to bank “Rossiya”. Meanwhile, since the 1990s, Mordashov had maintained a partnership with Petersburg banker Vladimir Kogan, the former founder of ICB. In early 2001, Mordashov sold a shareholding of “Metkombank” to Kogan.

Source: «Komsomol truth», 5/30/2007

In early 2007, rumors started spreading in the media, particularly in newspapers “Commersant” and “Newspaper”, about a possible merger of the two largest metallurgical companies – “Eurazholding” and “Severstal”. There were also reports of the industry being nationalized by the government. Without any concrete evidence to support these claims, it was assumed that the influential owners of these newspapers, Alisher Usmanov and Vladimir Lisin, who also owned major metallurgical companies, might have created these rumors to pressure their competitors into buying their businesses at high prices, or to intimidate them to stop investing in their enterprises and sell to a competitor.

Source: “Money” № 33 (688), 8/25/2008

In August 2008, there was a change in shareholders at Mordashov’s company “Power machines”: 63.1% of the company's shares were now held by three offshore companies. Two of these offshore companies, King Rail Trading and Ashington Trading, each own 16.55% of the company's shares. It is presumed that these companies are under the control of Alexey Mordashov, and restructuring the assets allows him to bypass the requirement for offering to buy the shares from minority shareholders. If Alexey Mordashov had made the offer, he would have had to purchase the shares from the minority shareholders at 9% above the market price. However, he did not make the offer but instead bought company shares in the off-exchange market from multiple sellers. This redistribution of assets also gave Mordashov control over the joint stock of the company.

Source: Rusmet.ru 24.12.09

The Office of Public Prosecutor accused Alexey Mordashov of legislation infringement – he, having dismissed employees of Kostomuksha mining and concentrating mill, in October, 2009 replaced them with less paid Gastarbeiters. Active workers of the enterprise arranged several meetings in the city, the Office of Public Prosecutor of Karelia began investigation. Trade-union active workers were accused of extremism and Alexey Mordashov was required by the public prosecutor of republic Karelia to exclude infringement of the labor and social rights of citizens and to provide measures on prevention social and political tension in «Karelian pellet OAO. Thereof Mordashev stopped employment of migrants.

Source: www.polit.ru/news, 12/2/2009

Alexey Mordashova’s name was mentioned in a context of preparation of amendments by the Ministry of Finance to the article 7 of the Tax code depriving Russian businessmen of possibility to minimize taxes by using the companies in the countries having agreements with Russia on avoidance of the double taxation. It was declared that Alexey Mordashov had supervised “Severstal” through the Cyprian companies, thereby minimized taxes in the federal budget of our country.

Source: “Premier”, № 3(642) 19-25.01.2010

The family conflict of Alexey Mordashov with the first wife Elena Novitskaya passed to a new stage – in 2004 she submitted the claim to the Strasbourg court where she accused Russia of partiality of justice. In January, 2010 Novitskaya’s case received a priority. Few years ago the court dismissed Novitskaya’s claim about property separation, as all agreements on property division between spouses had been signed back in 1996, and Novitskaya did not apply for shares and refused them voluntarily. Having lost the court, Elena Novitskaya still owed the state duty of 213 million rubles. In European court Novitskaya demanded from Russia for compensation at amount of 500 million dollars, referring to article 6 of the European convention about human rights. Now Russia should prove that at the moment of divorce Alexey Mordashov did not possess influence on justice.