Leonid Lebedev

Leonid Lebedev (born May 2, 1956) is a Russian entrepreneur and elected representative in Russia’s Upper House of Parliament.

Lebedev is sole owner of Sintez Group,^[1] a privately held energy, oil and gas and property development company with more than $1 billion in annual sales. In 1988 he co-founded the company, which according to Forbes Russia now ranks 154th among private companies in Russia.^[2]

He has also been a successful entrepreneur in music and film, serving as a producer, during the 1980s and more recently, in the creation of award-winning independent films such as Hipsters and The Geographer Drank His Globe Away.

In 2002 he was elected to the Federation Council (Russia), Russia’s Upper House of Parliament, representing the Republic of Chuvashia.

Life and career

Leonid Lebedev was born in Moscow.^[3] He earned a degree in engineering from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering in 1979.^[4]

He served as an expert consultant to the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Mosconcert during the early 1980s.^[5]

Early entrepreneurship

In 1988, just after Perestroika, Lebedev co-founded Sintez International, an American joint venture, which traded in commodities and industrial supplies.^[6]

According to Forbes, Lebedev is “one of the few Soviets who experimented with joint business ventures between the capitalistic US and the socialistic USSR in the 1980s.” He is “not your typical Russian businessman who took advantage of early privatization or operated under some influential politician’s wing.” Forbes further states, “He sunk wells where there were none and struck black gold,” pointing out his “entrepreneurial experience” accumulated in “tumultuous times in Russia.” ^[7]

In Western Siberia, SINTEZ built an oil production plant, called Negusneft, developed its infrastructure, and undertook industrial trading and exports.^[8]

In 1989 Lebedev also co-founded SINTEZ Records, a recording studio and label for underground rock artists.^[9]

On February 5, 2014, Lebedev sued his former partners, Viktor Vekselberg and Leonid Blavatnik, for breach of contract for $2 billion in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.^[10]

Film producer

Lebedev is a “movie producer with more than a dozen feature films in his portfolio.”^[11] He is a co-founder and a co-owner of “Red Arrow” film studio, which is one of the leading Russian film makers.

In 2008, he joined forces with director Valery Todorovsky to co-produce Hipsters (film) (in Russian, Stilyagi) a romantic comedy set in 1950s Moscow that was Russia's first post-Soviet musical. He also produced The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (film), which won the Gran Prix at the 2013 Kinotavr film festival and at the 2013 Film Festival Cottbus.

With the help of his American daughter, Julia Lebedev, a USC graduate living in Los Angeles, Lebedev has entered the U.S. film industry. They have formed a small film company, Code Red Productions, where he serves as financier, while Julia identifies promising screenplays, potential partners and supervises production. Recent works include The Good Doctor (2011 film) co-produced with the film’s star Orlando Bloom (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) and “Prophet,” which is in production and features the animation voices of Salma Hayek and Liam Neeson.

Personal

Lebedev, who is a widower, lives in Moscow, as does his other daughter, Yana, who has founded an online fashion guide.^[12]

He frequently participates in sailing competitions on his RC44 yacht with the Russian sailing team Synergy. He is a helmsman and co-owner of this team.^[13]

In 2013, Lebedev earned a Ph.D. by Belgorad State Technological University in colloidal chemistry (the topic of Ph.D. dissertation: Colloidal and electrochemical aspects of anticorrosion protection of structural steel in nuclear power plants equipment.)

Lebedev supports many philanthropies in culture and education.^[14] Lebedev “has a reputation for discretion as a patron of the arts,” he is a founder and main sponsor of philanthropic Chuvashia Fund acting in the Russian region of the same name and one of the major sponsors of the New National Contemporary Arts Center in Moscow.^[15] He is also a member of Board of Trustees in Moscow-based State University for Art Studies.

Compromising information

Participation in the 1990s in one of the biggest illegal trafficking of arms and ammunition from Ukraine and Belarus to the groups fighting in former Yugoslavia. Lebedev (who used in the deal his corporation "Syntez") was one of the accused at the trial for this case in 2002 in Turin, Italy (The OSCE Hearing of June 5, 2003 – CSCE 108-1-1).

Misappropriation (non-payment of a loan) by Lebedev’s structures of $75 mm from the Latvian Parex banka in 2006, using a fictitious contract of guarantee for the loan.

Misappropriation by Lebedev’s structures of assets of German banking group Commerzbank in 2007 - non-payment of a loan worth $240 mm. In March 2012 the District Court of Limassol (Cyprus) issued a decision to arrest Lebedev’s assets totaling $180 mm.

Taking part in oil projects in Namibia in 2009 the structures of "Syntez" corporation owned by Lebedev refused to pay for rendered services to about ten contracting companies led by Baker Hughes, that by order of the corporation made exploration works on the Namibian shelf. The contractors were not paid about $40 mm.

Misappropriation by structures of "Syntez" in 2011 of the assets of the Russian branch of the bank Unicredit - non-payment of a loan worth 240 mm. http://www.kommersant.ru/Doc/1387877

The use since 2008 of illegal schemes to withdraw cash from the energy company TGK-2 (co-owned by Lebedev) to repay loans obtained for the acquisition of this asset. Since 2010 Lebedev began to increase in a growing progression the debts to partners and suppliers of resources, withdrawing money abroad through offshore structures. As a result the managers of TGK-2 in various regions of Russia were prosecuted.

In April 2015 after the scandal with the income declaration senator Leonid Lebedev left the Federation Council (Russian Senate).

References