Len Blavatnik

Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik (born June 14, 1957) is a Ukrainian-born British-American businessman and philanthropist.

As of January 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at $31.3 billion.

Blavatnik was born in 1957 in Odesa, then in the Ukrainian SSR and part of the Soviet Union, to a Jewish family.

Blavatnik’s parents moved to Yaroslavl, a Russian city north of Moscow, when Blavatnik was a child.

Blavatnik attended Moscow State University of Railway Engineering, but did not complete his coursework due to the family's request for emigration visas.

At Moscow State University of Railway Engineering, Blavatnik became close friends with Viktor Vekselberg, another Ukrainian Jew.

Vekselberg would later go on to found Renova Group.

His family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States of America in 1978, and he received a master's degree in computer science from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1981 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989.

In 1986, Blavatnik founded the holding company, Access Industries Holdings, of which he is chairman and president.

The New York-based business controls 21% of LyondellBasell, the world's largest producer of polypropylene.

Through Access Industries Holdings, Blavatnik owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Blavatnik bought up former state assets in Russia that were privatized by the government.

Blavatnik began his business career by accumulating shares in aluminum smelters in the period of privatisation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He did this via his holding company, Access Industries.

He has been described as a victor in Russia's "aluminum wars".

Blavatnik made his wealth through the acquisition of these commodities.

One of his investments, Sual, later became part of United Company Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer.

Fridman, who was highly politically connected, had been a member of Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle in the mid 1990s.

The first order of business for AAR was to buy 40 per cent of a struggling oil producer Tyumen Oil (TNK) for $800 million.

TNK was one of few remaining state-owned oil companies.

Tyumen Oil was auctioned off with criteria that exactly matched AAR.

AAR far outbid its competitors but did not end up buying it for the agreed sum.

AAR reportedly paid just a quarter of the sum.

TNK then went on an acquisition spree, alighting on the oil company Sidanco, which was part-owned by the U.K. oil giant, British Petroleum.

In 1996, they obtained a coal mine in Kazakhstan.

In 1997, Blavatnik Access Industries united with Viktor Vekselberg's Renova Corp and Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, to form a company AAR (Alfa, Access, Renova).

Blavatnik’s key role within the group was to act as a connection to western businesses such as British Petroleum.

In 1999, TNK acquired Sidanco's best assets via bankruptcy proceedings.

BP later sued TNK in the New York courts, claiming that the Sidanco assets were acquired illegally.

The 1999 lawsuit was resolved in 2003 when British Petroleum acquired TNK, for $8 billion, forming TNK-BP, one of the largest oil companies in Russia.

The deal, labelled in the press as "Russia's deal of the decade" gave BP unprecedented access to vital Russian oil and gas.

In a 2002 interview, Blavatnik told Bloomberg he was even considering creating his own railways.

He and a friend from university, Viktor Vekselberg, formed the Renova investment vehicle.

Blavatnik and Vekselberg initially obtained a stake in the Irkutsk Aluminum Plant.

They accumulated smelters and plants until their company Sual had become the second-largest aluminum firm in Russia.

Blavatnik was a board member of Rusal from 2007 to 2016.

The company also invested in regional electricity generating stations, which they used to supply power to their energy-intensive aluminium businesses.

In 2017, Blavatnik received a knighthood for services to philanthropy.

Blavatnik made his initial fortune after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the privatization of state-owned aluminum and oil assets.

He owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets via his privately held Access Industries Holdings.