Gennady Timchenko
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Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko (also spelled Guennadi Timtchenko; Russian: Геннадий Николаевич Тимченко) is a prominent Russian businessman, focused on the oil trading, citizen of Finland[1] , currently living in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1997, he created the oil trading company Gunvor, which is currently considered as the third largest independent oil trader in the world. The May 2008 issue of Russian Forbes listed him for the first time in its Golden Hundred of Russia's richest (due to his share in Gunvor) and introduced him and another new entrant to the List Yuriy Kovalchuk as "good acquaintances of Vladimir Putin."[2] The magazine placed him at number 43 (Russians only list) with estimated fortune of $2.5 billion USD.
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[edit] Early life and family
Gennady Timchenko was born in Leninakan, Armenia (then part of the Soviet Union) in 1952 from a father who was in the Russian military. He spent part of his childhood in the Democratic Republic of Germany and in Ukraine.[3]
According to an interview to the Wall Street Journal, he graduated from the Mechanical University of St-Petersburg as an electrical mechanical engineer. Soon after his graduation, he got married to Elena. The couple has three children.
[edit] Career
In 1977, he started to work as an engineer for a plant near St-Petersburg specializing in building power generators. Since he spoke German, he was then moved to the trade department of this state-owned company.
In 1987 – 1994, when Russia started to liberalize its economy, he was promoted as the head of the state-owned oil company Kirishineftekhimexport enterprise. At this period Timchenko’s teams set up some of the first export routes of oil products from the USSR to Western countries. Timchenko became one of the first figures of the Russian oil trading industry. In 1990, Gennady Timchenko decided to leave Russia and was hired by a Finland-based company, URALS FINLAND, specializing in importing Russian oil to Europe. He settled in Finland and became a Finnish citizen. He now lives in Switzerland.
[edit] Gunvor
Gennady Timchenko is the co-founder (together with Torbjörn Törnqvist) of Gunvor international B.V. a corporation registered in the Netherlands, and operating in trading and logistics related to the international oil market. Its operations consist in processing different sources of crude oil (there are different kinds) and optimize its supply in accordance to the movements in price and demand, but also by taking into account the variability of these two aspects regarding the political and economic context. Gunvor is well known for owning its own shipping company, Clearlake Shipping Ltd, which accounts, according to company’s officials, for its leadership in the oil trading. According to the German newspaper Capital, Gunvor's annual turnover would be of 70 billion dollars and the company's profit for 2008 of USD 500 million.
In May 2008, he publicly maintained that his "career of more than 20 years in the oil industry has not been built on favours or political connections".[4]
In 1987 – 1994 he led the state-owned Kirishineftekhimexport enterprise.
He is also believed to control the Swiss branch of the oil trading company Gunvor Services SA. According to the interview with Torbjörn Törnqvist they share 50-50 ownership of the company. In 2008 Timchenko's fortune was estimated by Forbes at 2.5 billions dollar. In 2009, however, Timchenko was taken off Forbe's list of the World's billionaires.[5]
Gunvor is the third biggest oil trader in the world after Glencore and Vitol.
[edit] Novatek
In October 2008, Gennady Timchenko announced that Volga Resources, a fund he created, bought 5% of the shares of the gas producing company Novatek, for an estimated 500 million US dollars.[6] In May 2009, Volga Resources announced that it has agreed to purchase 13.13% of Novatek and Gennady Timchenko was elected to the Board of Directors of Novatek.[7]
[edit] Controversy
In February 2004, Ivan Rybkin, a Russian politician who made many claims about Putin, including the claim that Vladimir Putin himself was behind the 1999 bombing in Moscow (which killed nearly 300 civilians, and triggered the Chechnya war),and once a contender running for the Russian presidency, former speaker of the State Duma and former member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, claimed that then incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in shady business activities together with Timchenko, and that Timchenko effectively had control over Russian oil giant Surgutneftegaz.[8] Putin's help was attributed as the reason for the company success by the Financial Times correspondents Catherine Belton and Neil Buckley.[9] It was later alleged that Putin controlled a thirty-seven percent share of Surgutneftegaz.[10]
[edit] References and notes
- ^ Hakala, Pekka (February 17, 2004). "Kremlin favourite Gennadi Timchenko is Finnish citizen". Helsingin Sanomat. http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20040217IE1.
- ^ "Kremlin-linked tycoon eyes Russia media firm-report". Reuters. April 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/sphereNews/idUSL234792120080423?sp=true&view=sphere.
- ^ "Excerpts: Gunvor's Timchenko On His History, Putin and Gunvor". The Wall Street Journal. June 11, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121313303128762055.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-06.
- ^ "Gunvor, Putin and me: the truth about Russian oil trader". Financial Times. May 22, 2008. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ed1d460-279a-11dd-b7cb-000077b07658.html.
- ^ "Billionaires - The World's Richest People - Forbes.com". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/business/billionaires/.
- ^ Novatek (October 6, 2008). Change in equity stake of NOVATEK shareholder. Press release. http://www.novatek.ru/eng/newscenter/pressrelease/2008/press_467.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ Volga Resources (May 27, 2009). Volga Resources raises stake in Novatek to 18.2%. Press release. http://www.volga.lu/270509.htm. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ "'In this context, you can't really be a journalist'". Radio Liberty. February 13, 2004. http://www.rferl.org/reports/mm/2004/02/3-130204.asp. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
- ^ Belton, Catherine; Buckley, Neil (May 15, 2008). "Friends in high places?". Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffb58e54-2216-11dd-a50a-000077b07658.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-06.
- ^ Quiring, Von Manfred (November 12, 2007). "Warum Putin gar nicht Präsident bleiben will" (in German). Die Welt. http://www.welt.de/politik/article1352592/Warum_Putin_gar_nicht_Praesident_bleiben_will.html. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
[edit] External links
- Biography by Vladimir Pribylovsky (in Russian).
- Les bonnes affaires de Guennadi Timtchenko (French)
- Correction Times online
