Sergei Polonsky

Sergei Yurievich Polonsky (Сергей Юрьевич Полонский; born 1 December 1972) is a Russian businessman.

Polonsky was born 1 December 1972 in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia), Polonsky finished secondary school No. 99 of the Vyborg District of Leningrad.

In 1989, he joined the airborne troops.

He completed his military service in the 21st Separate Air Assault Brigade (1990–1992), which was stationed in the time of the armed conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia in the combat zone at Tskhinval.

In 1994, when Polonsky was 22, he founded Stroymontazh LLC with his longtime friend Artur Kirilenko.

Stroymontazh was a construction and real estate firm set up with the initial intention of selling apartments that they had plastered and finished.

However, when the building owners ran into financial difficulty, they began to pay the pair in apartments.

It was through these means that Polonsky and Kirilenko took control of their first unfinished building, starting them on the path to being property developers.

In 1996 the company took its first contract job, completing an apartment project in St. Petersburg for a company called Lenenergo.

It was during the 1998 financial crisis in Russia, however, that Polonsky and Kirilenko began to achieve huge financial success.

According to The New York Times, by paying construction costs in rubles and selling property in dollars they were able to profit in the lag time between construction and sale as the value of the rouble fell.

The company rapidly amassed wealth and made a name for itself as one of St Petersburg's largest developers, eventually building Petrovsky Fort, a 540,000-square-foot complex that became the standard for business centers in the former capital.

He was one of the richest men in Russia before the late-2000s financial crisis.

Now, he is a shareholder and investor in a number of commercial structures incorporated by the holding company Potok.

He is currently awaiting trial in Moscow on charges of fraud.

In 2000, Polonsky graduated from the St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.

He qualified as an economist and manager with a specialization in economics and management of building enterprises.

Polonsky opened an office in Moscow in 2000, after graduating from St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.

Two years later, Mayor Luzkhov appointed him as an adviser.

Polonsky was not yet 30.

At its peak in the late 2000s, Mirax Group's assets amounted to more than 12 million square meters of real estate, with 2008 revenues estimated at $1.65 billion and net profits of $616.4 million.

Some notable projects are outlined below.

Identified as Moscow's first skyscraper, the Federation Tower is recognized as the tallest building in Europe.

The building consists of two towers, the taller one with 93 floors and a height of 1,161 feet, and the other with 63 floors.

The towers have 4.5 million square feet of high-end office space, luxury apartments, shops, restaurants, and a 44-story Grand Hyatt hotel.

A spire was to be also built which would have extended the complex's height to 450 meters (1,476 feet) as well as provided an observation deck, but it was never completed and was dismantled afterward.

In 2002, he defended his PhD thesis "Formation of Functional Procurement Strategies in Construction".

He is the owner and head of one of the largest real estate companies in Russia, Mirax Group (2004–2011).

In 2004, the Moscow branch of Stroymontazh was renamed "Mirax Group" and in 2006, split from Stroymontazh, the St Petersburg branch, with Polonsky at the head of Mirax and Kirilenko at the head of Stroymontazh.

In 2008 Polonsky attempted doctoral, but, considering the academic council biased, he withdrew the work and posted the text of the thesis for an open discussion on the Internet.

Construction of the project stalled in 2008 as a result of the financial crisis; however, it was resumed in August 2011 and completed in 2017.

Korona was a Moscow landmark project, aiming to reflect state-of-the-art achievements in architecture, planning, construction technologies, and landscaping.

The ceremony of laying the first stone in the foundation of the Korona Project intended to demonstrate a "new, unusual, vigorous and assertive style" of the young businessmen from St. Petersburg.

Golden Keys 2 Residential Property was the 2nd project implemented by Polonsky's team.

Polonsky suggested a comfortable "town within the city" living concept where high-rise residential buildings are mixed with a cottage village named "Y".

After that, the company launched new business centers Pollars and Europe Building.

Both men maintained 10% ownership of the other's company until 2009 when they each sold their respective stakes.

Mirax carried out projects in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Cambodia and the United States.

In 2009, The Federation Tower won the FIABCI World Prix d’Excellence Award (Office Category Winner).

On 12 July 2017 he was found guilty, but the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the crime was committed for the court's decision to be implemented.