German Khan

German Borisovich Khan (Герман Борисович Хан; born 24 October 1961) is a Ukrainian-Russian oligarch, billionaire, and businessman.

German Borisovich Khan was born on 24 October 1961 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The son of Ukrainian Jewish parents from Lviv, his father was a metallurgy professor.

Khan had a keen interest in sports at a young age, and during high school he developed a long-term interest in boxing, citing the sport as an influence on building confidence and self-discipline.

Khan graduated from high school in 1978 and subsequently worked for a year as an apprentice on a shop floor of a factory.

He then studied mechanical engineering at the Kyiv-Pedagogical College, graduating in 1982.

1983 he enrolled in the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (MISIS), where he specialised in the study of steel production.

After graduating from university in 1988 he worked in a wholesale business selling consumer items, before setting up his own cooperative.

He was then appointed the head of the wholesale trade business Alfa Eco as part of the Alfa Group Consortium, by his college friend Mikhail Fridman.

Alfa Group, which he also shares with another fellow billionaire and college peer, Alexei Kuzmichev, is the biggest financial and industrial investment group in Russia.

After graduating from college in 1988, Khan operated small businesses such as the clothing cooperative "Alexandrina" he founded with a partner, where he served as deputy chairman and handled supply chain and sales before its sale in 1990.

After a chance meeting with businessman Mikhail Fridman, who had also been a student at MISIS, Khan was asked to head-up a wholesale trade business Alfa Eco as part of a wider company, Alfa Group Consortium.

The company began by buying and selling a range of products including the purchase, upholstery and sale of carpets to domestic and then later, export markets.

Khan took on a number of managerial positions within the company as it expanded into new areas, including head of the wholesale trade department, then head of the export department.

Currently under the umbrella company Alfa Group Consortium, other divisions now include Alfa Capital Management, Rosvodokanal Group, AlfaStrakhovanie Group and A1 Group.

It also holds interests in the telecommunications company Vimpelcom and Russia's biggest food retailer, X5 Group.

Khan held a number of managerial positions at Alfa Group starting in 1992.

He became president of Alfa Eco in 1996 and was instrumental in directing the company to focus on export and the oil trade.

With Alfa-Eco restructured as the trading arm of the Alfa Group, Khan was Alfa-Eco's head of trade operations until 1996 and its director of commodity trading from 1995 to 1998.

He became president in 1996, where for his two-year tenure he was instrumental in directing the company to focus on export and the oil trade.

The company started by purchasing crude, securing contracts with refiners to process it, and then selling the refined product.

When Alfa bought Tyumen Oil (TNK) in 1997, he joined the board of directors.

He was deputy chairman of TNK Oil Company from 1997 until 2003.

In 1997, Alfa Group Consortium together with Access Industries and Renova Group acquired the state-owned TNK Oil Company (Tyumen Oil Company).

Alfa Group purchased 40% of TNK's shares.

When Alfa bought Tyumen Oil (TNK), he joined the board and remained involved in M&A deals.

Khan was appointed deputy chairman of the management board of TNK in 2000, retaining the role until 2003.

In 2003, Khan worked with the other TNK owners to form a 50–50 joint venture with British Petroleum (BP), in what was the largest foreign investment in Russia to date, at US$8 billion.

TNK-BP became Russia's third largest oil company.

In 2003, Alfa Group sold exactly half of TNK to British Petroleum (BP) for US$6.15 billion, in what was the biggest foreign investment in Russia to date equivalent to $8 billion in invested assets.

The deal resulted in the formation of the oil company TNK-BP, with half of the joint venture owned by BP, and the other 50 percent owned by the Alfa Group together with billionaire partners Viktor Vekselberg, and Leonard Blavatnik.

From 2003 to 2013, Khan was executive director of TNK-BP Management (now called TNK-BP Holding), and a member of the management board.

While managing TNK-BP, Khan remained involved with the Alfa Group at large.

Alfa Group bought a stake in Turkcell in 2005, and by April 2007, Alfa Group controlled a 43.5% stake in Kyivstar, a Ukrainian telecom company.

During Khan's tenure as a TNK-BP executive director, TNK-BP became Russia's third largest oil company and globally a top ten private oil producer.

Without a majority stakeholder in the company to dictate choices, by 2008, BP executives were in conflict with AAR over TNK-BP's strategy to internationalise the business.

In 2013 TNK-BP was sold to Rosneft for US$56 billion, a sale described by Reuters as "one of the biggest energy takeovers in history."

Khan joined Mikhail Fridman in establishing LetterOne, based in Luxembourg, for the purpose of investing some of the proceeds from the TNK-BP sale in international projects.

LetterOne's L1 Energy fund was founded in 2013.

Khan has donated funds to non-profits such as the European Jewish Fund, and co-founded and supports the Genesis Philanthropy Group.