Alexander Lebedev

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Alexander Lebedev

Alexander Lebedev (born 16 December 1959) is a Russian billionaire, referred to as one of the Russian tycoons. In March 2006, he was listed by Forbes magazine as one of the richest Russians and as the 194th richest person in the world with an estimated fortune of $3.5 billion^[1]. He is a member of the state Duma, a former KGB agent, owns a third of Aeroflot, and is part owner of Novaya Gazeta ^[2]

[edit] Biography

Alexander Lebedev was born to a family of Moscow intelligentsia. His father, Evgeny Nikolaevich Lebedev was a Professor at Bauman Moscow Highest Technical School and a retired athlete (a former member of the Soviet National Water polo team). Alexander's mother, Matiya Sergeevna, after graduating from Moscow Pedagogic Institute worked in a rural Sakhalin school, then taught English in a Moscow tertiary school ^[3].

In 1977, Alexander Lebedev entered the Department of Economics at Moscow State Institute of International Relations. After his graduation from this school in 1982, Lebedev started to work for the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System doing research for his Kandidat (Ph.D.) dissertation The problems of debt and the challenges of globalization. However he soon transferred to the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of KGB. He worked there and at its successor Foreign Intelligence Service until 1992^[3]. In London he had the diplomatic cover of an economics attaché ^[4]. According to Lebedev's personal site ^[3] his assignments included fighting the Capital flight from Russian Federation. The Sunday Express stated that he “spent more time studying finance and the City than British secrets” ^[2].

After retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel Lebedev created his first company: the Russian Investment-Finance Company (Русская инвестиционно-финансовая компания). In 1995, the company bought a small and troubled bank named National Reserve Bank that soon grew to become one of the largest Russian banks^[3]. The National Rezerve Bank and Alfa Bank were the only two out of the ten largest Russian banks that survived the Russian financial crisis of 1998. Now it is in the top thirty of Russian banks^[3].

Among bank's assets are:

30% of the main Russian national airline Aeroflot (the largest private stock holder);
44% of the Ilyushin Finance Co, that owns a significant share of Russian aircraft-building industry;
significant parts of Sberbank, Gazprom, Unified Energy System.

The bank is the core of the National Reserve Corporation, that according to Lebedev's personal site owns around US$2 billion of assets^[3]. Forbes ^[1] estimates Lebedev's fortune higher as US$3.5 billion.

The National Reserve Corporation included National Meat Company, National Mortgage Company (Национальная Ипотечная Компания), construction companies as well as daughter structures in textile, telecommunications, trams and trolleybuses, electrical power, chemical and tourist industries. They own a large tourist hotel network in Crimea (Ukraine) and plan to create the National Reserve Park that will manage diverse tourist enterprises in Russia, Ukraine and France. According to his website Lebedev was one of the first prominent businessmen with interests to Russian technology and socially-oriented business rather than the simple exploitation of the country's natural resources^[3].

Lebedev is a founder and the President of the National Investment Council, a non-political and non-Government organization working to improve the investment sentiments in Russia, protecting interests of the Russian business abroad and fighting the negative sentiments towards the Russian business^[3].

In 2003 Lebedev stood as a candidate for the elections of Moscow Mayor and State Duma. He received 13% on the Mayoral elections loosing to the incumbent Yuriy Luzhkov but won the place in the State Duma by the Rodina party list (he was actually number one on the Moscow regional list of this party). Later he broke with "national-patriotic" electoral block "Rodina" and became a member of the pro-Government United Russia party^[3]. Lebedev (together with the former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev) is also the owner of the 49% of the Novaya Gazeta, one of the most vocal critics of the current Russian Government ^[5].

After the assassination of a prominent Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya Lebedev wrote an article ^[6] praising the talents of Politkovskaya and suggesting that the assassins were actually trying to target the good names of her opponents. He also pledged 25 million Russian rubles (around US$1mln) for the information leading to catching the assassins ^[6]. So far the reward was not claimed.

Currently Lebedev is the Vice-Chairman of Duma's committee on the Commonwealth of Independent States; the coordinator of Duma's group on interactions with Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the coordinator of the State Duma group dealing with the city of Moscow^[3].

Lebedev continued his research in Economics getting the Kandidat (Ph.D.) degree for his dissertation Problems of the Russian Foreign Debt (Global and Regional Aspects) (2000) and his |Dr. Sci degree for the dissertation Financial Globalization in the context of the Global, Regional and National (Russian) development^[3].

Lebedev has a long history of supporting culture and charity. He even created the organization named Charitable Reserve Fund (Благотворительный Резервный Фонд) to make some order on these activities. Among the organizations and projects he (or BRF) sponsored are^[3]:

Children Center for Hematology and Transplantology named after Raisa Gorbachyova in Saint Petersburg (General Sponsor of the construction)
Burdenko military Hospital
State Russian Museum
Fomenko Theater
Moscow Art Theatre,
Lesya Ukrainka Russian Theater in Kyiv,
Museum of Mikhail Bulgakov in Kyiv,
Restoration of the monument to Alexander Suvorov in Swiss Alps.
Monument Sorrow (Скорбящая) in London by sculptor Andrey Scherbakov commemorating Soviet soldiers who died during World War II