Steel grip. How Alexei Mordashov took over Severstal & nbsp. Steel King Who is Alexei Mordashov by nationality

How a closed boy Alexei Mordashov made influential friends and became an oligarch

Pioneer means first. For the Russian Forbes, the pioneer was the owner of Severstal Alexei Mordashov - it was his photo that was on the cover of the first issue of the magazine, which was released in April 2004. The article about the steel magnate was written by the magazine's editor-in-chief Paul Khlebnikov. At the same time, in the Forbes Golden Hundred, Mordashov took ninth place that year, since then he has never hit the first place, but he has already been second three times.

This year, Forbes estimated Mordashov's fortune at $ 17.5 billion. The businessman became the first in the rating among "metallurgists" and the second in the general list. Recently, in a conversation with Forbes, Mordashov was also named a pioneer by one of the Russian billionaires. After all, Mordashov is "always ready" - for any requirements and wishes of the authorities.

Executive

Lesha Mordashov in childhood was a correct and responsible boy. I didn’t shoot from slingshots, I didn’t fight at school. From favorite toys - only a gray teddy bear, hobby - collecting badges. He was often sick, but the teachers of the Cherepovets school where he studied always set Alexei as an example, classmates in retaliation called the future billionaire Template.

Mordashov's parents worked at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, he did not become original with the choice of profession - he entered the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute, after graduating in 1988 he returned to Cherepovets and began working at the plant as a senior economist at the shop.

An energetic and executive young man was noticed and loved by the general director of the plant, Yuri Lipukhin. In 1992, he appointed 27-year-old Mordashov as director of finance and economics for the entire enterprise, and in 1993 he was instructed to deal with privatization. For three years, the Severstal-invest company he created bought up 43% of the plant's shares with the proceeds from the sale of products. What to do with them? Mordashov, who had an internship in Austria, understood this better than the “red director” Lipukhin, who, by the way, became his godfather in 1997. The godson first took the post of general director of the plant, moving Lipukhin to the post of chairman of the board of directors, and in the spring of 1999, secretly from him, he bought another 17% of the enterprise. “I approached him and said: Alyosha, you can’t act like that,” Lipukhin told Forbes. “His answer was extremely short: it was not written anywhere.”

Enterprising

The crisis of 1998 collapsed the Russian economy, but the business of metallurgists quickly went uphill. The revenue of the Cherepovets Combine was in foreign currency, and the costs were in rubles. In 1997, the plant earned $ 6 million in net profit, in 2000 - $ 453 million. Big money quarreled between the godson and the godfather completely. Lipukhin demanded that profits be invested in the development of production, and Mordashov decided to create a diversified holding and began to buy up assets: plywood mills, shares of ports, coal mines, as well as the Kolomna Diesel Locomotive Plant and the UAZ plant. In early 2001, Mordashov asked Lipukhin to sell him his shares in Severstal. He agreed, but, as he later admitted, he sold at a price six times less than he could have fetched on the market.

The former CEO of the Soviet metallurgical giant took up real estate in Sochi, then moved with his family to Canada and in April 2011 died of a heart attack at the age of 75. Mordashov admitted that the privatization of Severstal, although not entirely fair, was expedient, since the enterprise eventually received an "honest owner." Before he had time to complete the registration of a controlling stake for himself, he immediately received a blow from an unexpected quarter. In August 2001, 32% of the shares of the plant owned by Mordashov were arrested. The lawsuit was filed by Elena Mordashova, whom he divorced in 1996.

Caring

Ex-wife Elena demanded to transfer a quarter of the businessman's income for their son Ilya and wanted to recover about 600 million rubles in alimony that had not been paid for a year and a half. Mordashov, according to her, paid his son only 18,000 rubles a month.

The trial of the owner of Severstal with his ex-wife lasted more than a year and ended in his complete victory in October 2002 - the court found Elena's claims to her ex-husband unfounded. She did not appear in the information field anymore. Mordashov acquired the attributes of a wealthy man slowly, he did not advertise wealth. The first foreign car, Audi, came to him only in 1998, his own house - in 2000, in 2001 - security.

The second wife of Alexei Mordashov was also called Elena - she worked at the plant as an accountant, in June 1997 they got married, in 1999 the couple had a son, Cyril. “Alexey was with me during childbirth, holding my hand. The next morning, he gave me pearl earrings and a necklace, ”Mordashov’s second wife said in an interview with Profile magazine in 2001. - And a few days before 2001, I gave Alexei, as he himself says, the best New Year's gift in his life - his son Nikita ... Alexei simply loves kids. He is a very gentle dad."

Now Mordashov has a third wife, Marina. They have two daughters. The eldest, Masha, studies at the Wunderpark school near Moscow, which was opened by her mother, five-year-old Anastasia is brought up at home with three-year-old Daniil. A month of education in the 1st grade of the Wunderpark elementary school costs 132,500 rubles.

Global

That metallurgist who does not dream of world domination is bad. In 2004, Mordashov's Severstal began expanding to the West - it acquired a steel plant in the United States, Rouge Steel Company. And on May 26, 2006, information appeared about the merger of Severstal with one of the world's largest steel companies - the French Arcelor. In the combined company with an annual revenue of €46 billion, Mordashov counted on 38.5% of the shares (with an additional payment of €1.25 billion). “Never before has a Russian company ... become part of a global company leading in its sector in the world, with Russian shareholders gaining dominance in this company,” he said in an interview with Vedomosti. “Never before have the transaction amounts been so large.” The deal was lobbied at the state level by President Vladimir Putin. "It would be a big exaggeration to say that I am a friend of Mr. Putin," Mordashov said in an interview with the Financial Times, when asked about the Russian government's support for the Arcelor deal.

The brilliant plan collapsed after Arcelor received a merger proposal from comparable steel giant Mittal Steel. Mordashov was left behind, but he did not abandon his plans to conquer the world. In 2007-2008, he got rid of non-core assets - he sold Severstal-Avto (now called Sollers, which includes UAZ) and transport companies (they were merged into the N-Trans holding) to management and bought American metallurgical plants Sparrows Point, Warren and Wheeling, coal mining PBS Coals, iron ore companies with deposits in Brazil and Africa.

Tourist

The 2008 crisis brought down the automotive and steel industries. The blow was so strong that Mordashov quickly realized that he was still too weak for global games. From 2011 to 2014, he sold all American factories. And he did not hide his disappointment: “Of course, we made a big mistake, we sold much cheaper than we bought.” From 2004 to 2014, Severstal spent $5.9 billion on the acquisition and investment in American plants, and sold them for $2.2 billion. Mordashov got rid of Dearborn and Columbus in 2014 after the US imposed sanctions against Russia in connection with the annexation of Crimea .

In early 2015, the billionaire met with President Putin, reported on the sale of all American assets and promised him to avoid "unwise investments" in the future. But Mordashov is still investing abroad - in the tourism business. In 2007, he began to carefully buy shares of the world's largest travel company TUI (headquartered in Germany) on the market. The capitalization of the company is almost $ 8 billion, and Mordashov's share is 23% of the shares. His goal is to bring the package to the blocking (25%). The German management welcomed the entry of Mordashov into the number of shareholders, assessing the scale of the Russian tourism market. In addition, Mordashov has earned a reputation in Germany as a reliable strategic investor due to joint projects with Siemens.

Friendly

Mordashov knows how to choose friends. He was friends with Anatoly Chubais, who taught at his institute. Chubais introduced him to the club of young reformers who later became members of Boris Yeltsin's government. Friendship with St. Petersburg financier Vladimir Kogan brought him closer to Putin. In 2003, Mordashov became a co-owner of Rossiya Bank. After the imposition of sanctions against the bank, according to Forbes, he considered the possibility of withdrawing from the shareholders, but did not dare.

In 2008, Mordashov, Surgutneftegaz and Rossiya Bank created the National Media Group, which now owns stakes in TV channels (Fifth, First, REN TV), newspapers (Izvestia, Metro Petersburg”, “Sport-Express”) and radio stations “Life. Sound". In March 2016, Gazprom-Media bought 7.5% of NMG (the entire group was valued at $2.2 billion). In 2013, Mordashov and Yuri Kovalchuk F 93 acquired a 50% stake in the mobile operator Tele2.

Manager

Severstal, fully self-sufficient in raw materials and coal, has always paid generous dividends to shareholders, having violated this rule only once - in the crisis of 2009. The owner of Severstal was not seen in large spending on mansions and mega-yachts. “You can’t wear two suits. Dividends will still go to investments, where else?” Mordashov argued.

Over time, his business expanded and grew in new areas that required attention. In May 2015, Mordashov decided to move away from the operational management of Severstal and left the post of CEO of the management company Severstal Management in order to "reallocate time and effort in favor of asset portfolio management."

In two years, by February 2017, the value of his stake in the NordGold gold miner increased 2.4 times, to $1.2 billion; tour operator TUI - from $1.27 billion to $1.9 billion. Mordashov's package in the National Media Group in February 2015 cost $70 million, and in February 2017 - $650 million. Only Power Machines fell in price, from $1 .45 billion to $900 million, and Tele2 - the price of its share has almost halved, to $100 million. But all this is trifles against the backdrop of the growth of Severstal: Mordashov's stake has risen in price from $6 billion to $10 billion in two years.

Elena Berezanskaya, Igor Popov

grip of steel

Alexei Mordashov is very different from most Russian billionaires. In his manner of doing business, he resembles the head of Siemens or General Electric rather than one of the heroes of the Russian era of primitive accumulation of capital. He forces all his managers to get an MBA degree abroad. In the late 1990s, his company was the largest McKinsey client in Eastern Europe, which he used not only for consulting but also as a talent pool. The general director of Severstal Group did not participate in any privatization scandals, he did not get into politics, until recently he lived not in Moscow, but in his native Cherepovets. Even when in 2001 competitors collected dirt on him, they only unearthed a sad story from his personal life - an abandoned first wife with a teenage son receiving meager alimony.

“We didn’t seize anything, we didn’t run into anyone, we didn’t use state bodies or corruption,” says Alexei Mordashov in an interview with Forbes. “Everything we bought, we bought with money.”

And only one story from Mordashov's past has so far remained a secret with seven seals. About how, in fact, he gained control of Severstal, only a few laconic statements by Mordashov himself were published.

Forbes was able to ask about this story of its second main participant, the hitherto silent ex-general director of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, Yuri Lipukhin. From his stories, it becomes clear that Mordashov bought the shares of the plant, although for money, but not for his own. And his partner and, by the way, Lipukhin's godfather, deftly brushed aside.

The history of the privatization of Severstal is the history of two generations of managers, Soviet and post-Soviet, who won the younger and lost the older. Kind of like a remake of King Lear.

“Father will not pull all the skeletons out of the closet,” Lipukhin’s son Viktor warned us before giving us the coordinates of the former Severstal CEO. “He has both a love and a hate for the company.” Indeed, Yuri Lipukhin today speaks of the enterprise to which he gave most of his life with pain and pride, and about Mordashov - either with respect or with bitter resentment. “I entrusted the privatization of the plant to Alexei, and it was my mistake,” Lipukhin says ruefully in an interview with Forbes. - Because at one point he became a completely different person. He was not the master of his word.

The biography of the triumphant hero is widely known. Mordashov was born and grew up in Cherepovets. His mother worked at a metallurgical plant, and his father was one of its builders. In the early 1980s, he entered the Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Economics, where, by the way, he met Anatoly Chubais. In 1988, having returned to Cherepovets, he came to his native plant as a senior shop economist. The energetic young man was quickly noticed by his superiors. Mordashov was sent for a six-month internship at the Austrian steel company Voest Alpine.

Returning after an internship in 1990, Mordashov met with the general director of the plant. Lipukhin liked the budding economist for his cheerfulness and enterprise. “He had great proposals for restructuring. I saw that a person thinks, creatively approaches the matter, - says Lipukhin. - It was easier for the younger generation to build new economic relations. This required theoretical preparation and the absence of complexes that were typical for us.

True, Mordashov's promising career was almost interrupted at the very beginning. Together with him, the son of the Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy Serafim Kolpakov, Sergei, trained in Austria. “Alexey arranged something inappropriate, quarreled with him over trifles,” says Lipukhin.

Mordashov recalls this story with a laugh: “Well, yes, it was like that. He wanted to relax, and I wanted to study. And he complained to his father. The consequences, however, could be very serious for the future owner of Severstal. “The minister demanded that I remove him immediately,” says Lipukhin. - But I stood up for Alexei and slowly defended him. Then Alexei had a lot of such skirmishes. He is a hot-tempered, conflicted person.

Lipukhin attributed these qualities to the youth of his subordinate, and in 1992 he appointed 27-year-old Mordashov as director of finance and economics.

The company was going through hard times at the time. After the collapse of the USSR, Severstal lost its domestic sales market. The reorientation to export - and now the company exports about 40% of its products - began under Lipukhin.

“Traders appeared - including emigrants from Russia, all nimble, energetic, who came to us and said: give us 10,000 tons of metal, we will buy it from you and sell it in China or Malaysia,” says Mordashov. - We did not know the world market and did not receive a normal price. There was a period when steel was bought from us at $200 per ton and sold for $300 or $350.”

The traders got so rich skimming the cream off the steel mills that they soon began to take full control of the cash cows. The most predatory turned out to be Trans-World Group, which crushed most of the Russian aluminum and steel industries. TWG also took note of Severstal.

According to one of the managers of the plant, Vladimir Lisin, at that time one of the top managers of Trans-World, and now the main owner of the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works, first came to Cherepovets. Lisin allegedly came to discuss a project related to Moscow real estate, but Cherepovites believe that his mission was more of a reconnaissance mission. Because after him, TWG chief Mikhail Chernoy himself rushed to the plant with proposals to organize trade financing and offshore schemes for the plant. Lipukhin refused Cherny, but he did not back down immediately. On behalf of TWG, young Iskander Makhmudov and Oleg Deripaska later visited Cherepovets with new proposals. However, they also received a turn from the gate. TWG did not fight hard for the plant - she had to act on too many fronts.

“There were a lot of objects for which there was a struggle, and they simply did not pay due attention to us,” says Mordashov. - And we lived very locally, we didn’t go anywhere. Often people called me, including representatives of large groups, and invited, say, to dinner in Moscow, but I simply did not answer the calls.

Traders, including Trans-World, offered Severstal managers assistance in the privatization of the enterprise. Having abandoned it, the Cherepovets team, however, applied the methods of TWG: they used trader structures to establish control over the plant. Mordashov easily convinced Lipukhin that the shares of the plant should be taken away for himself - in order to prevent outsiders from entering the enterprise.

Privatization began in 1993. A controlling stake of 51% was to be distributed among employees by closed subscription, and 29% were to be put up for a voucher auction. So the Lipukhin team had to urgently buy vouchers for all available money.

This is how they made money. Under the purchase of shares, the company Severstal-Invest was created. According to the law, enterprises in which state-owned companies had more than 25% could not participate in privatization. Therefore, the plant itself had only 24% in Severstal-Invest. The rest 76% was personally owned by Mordashov. Lipukhin proposed to create a core of shareholders from members of the board of directors and other "most respected people at the plant", but Mordashov dissuaded him. Yes, Lipukhin did not particularly insist. “Then few people understood privatization, they were afraid to get involved with it,” recalls Mordashov.

The plant sold metal to Severstal-Invest at low prices. The trading company used a huge margin from its resale to buy vouchers, and at the same time shares from workers. “I was practically trading with myself,” says Lipukhin. - I could set any prices, you understand? I saw, of course, that this is the purest… that this is a fictitious work, not quite correct commerce. However, I controlled the actions of this company, provided it with goods and loans, protected it from all controlling organizations, from the tax inspectorate, ministries, and currency control.

According to Lipukhin, Severstal-Invest not only received metal at reduced prices, but also took large loans from the plant. Money accumulated quickly. And as a result of the voucher auction, the managers of Severstal managed to get almost the entire block of shares put up for auction. Competitors again underestimated the Cherepovets privatizers.

“Our competitors, apparently, decided that we were a weak team that accidentally got hooked on something at the factory, and thought: well, let it sit there for a while, we’ll deal with it later,” recalls Mordashov, not without malice.

Over time, Severstal-Invest bought out almost all the shares from the workforce. “Then there were very difficult times, often they did not pay wages, and people willingly sold their shares,” recalls Lipukhin. Without mentioning at the same time that part of the money that went to Severstal-Invest due to the plant's low selling prices could have been used to pay the same salaries.

Lipukhin says that he did not seek to become the owner of the plant. "I did not set out to become the owner of the plant, although this would not have been a problem." Didn't he fear the fact that he was giving control of the shares to Mordashov? Lipukhin says that he absolutely trusted his subordinate: “Alexey was completely different at that time. He understood that everything depended on me, and he had one answer to everything: as you say, so be it. To this talented and obedient manager, the 60-year-old director was ready to give up his place: “I have already worked out. It's time to look for a replacement."

In 1996, Mordashov became the CEO of Severstal, and Lipukhin took over as chairman of the board of directors. It was then that he finally took care of the formal ownership of the shares. Those 43% of the shares of Severstal, which by that time had been accumulated by Severstal-Invest, were transferred to another structure - Severstal-Garant, 51% owned by Mordashov, 49% by Lipukhin.

At first, according to Lipukhin, they agreed on equal shares: “When I decided to leave, I told him - express your suggestions on how to divide these shares. He says equally. I say okay, I agree. After he became a director, he and his friends went to some islands, walked for a week, and when he returned, he came and said: equally not quite normal for me, give you 49%, and me 51%. I didn't care. I said, come on, I agree.

Thanks to Lipukhin's compliance, there was no quarrel between the partners. When Mordashov was baptized in 1997, Lipukhin became his godfather. But even then, the ex-director understood: the charter of Severstal-Garant did not give him any opportunity to influence the management of Severstal shares. “Alexey received the combine on a plate with a blue border,” Lipukhin says bitterly. “I simply gave the plant to him and faded into the background.”

The conflict between the two privatizers emerged after the 1998 default. With the devaluation of the ruble, the business of the plant went uphill sharply - after all, its costs were calculated in rubles, and the proceeds were mainly in foreign currency. Net profit rose from $111 million in 1997 to $453 million in 2000. What to do with this profit - because of this, the partners quarreled.

“I had a strategy - to develop the plant, restore production, improve the environment,” says Lipukhin. - But Alexei considered it a disastrous affair. The development of the plant was curtailed, and God knows what began.

Mordashov followed the path of creating a diversified holding company, later named Severstal Group, and began to buy up industrial assets: shares in the St. Petersburg, Tuapse and Vostochny ports, coal mines, as well as railway cars, the Kolomna Diesel Locomotive Plant, the UAZ plant. Mordashov explains the desire to diversify the business by the need to smooth out the cyclicality of the steel business.

It was at this time that Mordashov did away with the principle of collegial management of the plant's shares. “In the spring of 1999, he arbitrarily, without my knowledge, bought back 17% of the shares that belonged to Severstal-Invest,” says Lipukhin. - I went up to him and said: Alyosha, you can’t act like that. His answer was extremely short: it was not written anywhere.”

That's why Lipukhin is still offended by his successor and accuses him of violating this word. Mordashov denies any gentlemen's agreements with Lipukhin. He believes that he acted extremely honestly in relation to the ex-director. “His fate differs from that of other old directors in that he was not expelled from the plant as a result of privatization,” says Mordashov. - On the contrary, Lipukhin became one of the largest shareholders of the company. I didn’t take everything for myself, although legally I could do it.”

Diversifying the business, Mordashov for the first time in his career got involved in a tough competition. Zavolzhsky Motor Plant, a supplier of engines for GAZ, became the subject of his conflict with the owner of GAZ, Oleg Deripaska. With the head of Evrazholding, Alexander Abramov, Mordashov fought for Kuzbassugol. Another of his rivals - for dominance in the metallurgical market - was Iskander Makhmudov. At Severstal, they believe that it was he who financed the litigation with Mordashov of his ex-wife. Makhmudov's entourage does not comment on this.

One way or another, these lawsuits made Mordashov think about protecting property. And in early 2001, he asked Lipukhin to give him his 49% stake in Severstal-Garant. The ex-director claims that he received six times less for this package than he could have earned on the market. Mordashov does not name the price of the transaction, after which he became almost the sole owner of Severstal, but flatly denies that he bought the shares at such a discount.

Lipukhin still monitors the state of affairs at the plant, where he worked for 42 years, 15 of them as a director. “Blast furnace number four is standing still, the by-product coke plant is in a bad state, the section rolling shop produces a third of what it can produce,” he complains. “Today, the plant produces 3 million tons of rolled products less than in 1990, although the country is experiencing an acute shortage of metal - metal prices in Russia are almost the highest in the world.”

And yet, Mordashov, having expanded his industrial empire, now largely follows the advice of his predecessor: he again realized that the main business of Severstal is metallurgy. To gain access to the American market, Mordashov defeated U.S. Steel in the fight for the bankrupt Rouge Industries - one of the largest steel companies in the United States, founded in the 1920s by Henry Ford.

“The American market is the most demanding in terms of quality,” explains Mordashov, buying Rouge for $285 million. “Working with such a consumer is very important in order to raise the standards of our products.”

Someone will say that the main owner of Severstal - now Mordashov and related companies have 83% of the shares - dealt harshly with the person who at one time raised him and entrusted him with control over the plant. But against the background of the bloody showdowns of those years, the history of Severstal looks like an exception. At the Cherepovets plant there was no shooting, no court squabbles. Lipukhin turned out to be too decent a person, and Mordashov, as a Western-style manager, showed himself not so bad.

Pavel Khlebnikov

The history of the Mordashov family is rooted in the Volga region. Here, on lands rich in forests, but not very suitable for agriculture, woodworking, "clumsy" craft was born. Entire families were engaged in the manufacture of wooden spoons, dishes, furniture and funny toys. The Mordashov family comes from the ancient Nizhny Novgorod village of Fedoseevo, which was famous for its toy woodworkers.

Each Fedoseev family specialized in its own form of this folk craft. The Mordashovs made horses. The older men carved them out of wood, and the rest of the family primed, painted and sold them in markets and fairs. The current owner of the country's metallurgical giant, the Severstal company, Alexei Mordashov, proudly says that Mordashov's wooden horses are exhibited at the Folk Toy Museum in Sergiev Posad.

The ancestor of the current Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov, Ivan Mordashov, made a miniature spoon workshop more than a hundred years ago, in which four pairs of small spoons placed under a gable canopy reproduced all the technological processes of real production: they sawed, hewed, chopped off and cut out spoons. The figurines were driven by the rotation of the shaft. It was not a shame to give such toys even at the royal court!

Funny wooden figurines were carved by Alexei Mordashov's great-grandfather and his grandfather….

The metallurgical chapter in the history of the family was started by Mordashov's father. He was the only one of the three brothers who did not go to nesting dolls, but graduated from the Gorky Polytechnic Institute with a degree in electrical engineering and moved to Cherepovets in the early 1960s. There, at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, he met Mordashov's future mother, who worked in the equipment department. It was a classic Soviet industrial novel: with awkward smiles at a meeting, secret dates after work, a long period of courtship - and a rapid transition to some kind of very solid and artless family life. The wedding was played right in the hostel, accommodating almost twenty guests in one room. And the next morning, Alexander Mordashov was already on shift.

Alexey was born in Cherepovets on September 26, 1965. In early childhood, he was diagnosed with a serious congenital injury, and, by his own admission, he already knew for sure that he would not be a pilot or an astronaut. However, his abilities and desires very soon coincided. Parents were not zealous in raising their son: they did not have time for this, and the boy did not cause concern. A calm, independent child, Lesha was not afraid to be alone at home when his parents were at work. Noisy games and dangerous boyish amusements aroused no interest in him.

At school, Mordashov, in his own words, was the right boy, classmates unanimously elected him head of the class. The class teacher so often cited Lesha as an example and urged students to look up to Mordashov that at some point Lesha was jokingly nicknamed Template.

He was not a leader, - his former history teacher recalls Alexei Mordashov. - But the boy was responsible and diligent, tried to be the best in everything, although he had no humanitarian inclinations..

Freed from physical education lessons, Lesha Mordashov could thoughtfully prepare homework or dreamily look out the window. Perhaps as a result of these dreams, Mordashov decided to become an economist. And pushed him to this ... Karl Marx. The creator of Capital did not throw bombs at the king, did not hold a rifle in his hands, did not cross the seas and deserts in search of truth, meanwhile, his ideas had such a powerful impact on the world that little could compare. By the end of school, Mordashov was confidently oriented in the basics of economic theory.

Having received a secondary education, Alexei Mordashov went to enter the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute, believing that it was less theorized than similar Moscow universities, closer to production and practice. Anatoly Chubais studied at the same institute, and then taught. Mordashov still found those times when, in the early 90s, a club of "young reformers" headed by Anatoly Borisovich often met on the top floor of the institute. Mordashov still speaks of Chubais with great student gratitude, recalling that Anatoly Borisovich gave him a lot of knowledge about economic mechanisms, rare at that time, for the first time introduced him to the works of Yegor Gaidar.

The student body became for Mordashov a real breakthrough into another life. He seemed to have wings on his back. There was a feeling of self-confidence, clarity in understanding the world around and one's own life. In the official biography of Mordashov, edited by himself, this period in the life of the future oligarch is described as follows: At the institute, Alexei Mordashov was an honors student, a Lenin scholarship holder and a Komsomol leader. The women of the university remember him with warmth and affectionately pronounce his simple Russian surname. He was remembered as a suave, unassuming, pleasant young man - a real man. Aleksey was polite to everyone and spoke in the same tone to both the cleaning lady and the rector of the institute.

These heartfelt memories are not disputed even by Mordashov's first wife, Elena, with whom the loudest scandal in the biography of the oligarch is associated.

Alexei Mordashov met his first love in his second year, right in the corridor of the institute. Lena Mityukova was a touching creature, from which socialist realist artists were just right to paint pictures: a chubby, ruddy, smiling girl radiated optimism and health. Classmates called this cheerful A student with wide-open eyes the Sun. It was the Sun that blinded Lesha Mordashov in the spring of 1985.

Sophomore Mordashov was not embarrassed by the fact that Lena was almost three years older. He spoke to her, colliding at the door of the auditorium, and immediately invited her for a walk. After classes, they went for a walk around spring Leningrad. The bright sun shone. The young gentleman shone with intelligence and erudition. They went to cafes, drank coffee and cakes. It was interesting for her to talk with him and it was pleasant to walk along the spring streets next to such an intelligent and prominent young man. Lena fell in love with Alexei Mordashov, if not at first sight, then from the first meeting. Since that day, girlfriends and dormitory neighbors have only heard from Lena how smart, and handsome, and gallant Lesha is ...

What happened next? Elena Mityukova later commented on her relationship with Alyosha Mordashov at that time: “We met, met and ... met.” Despite her adulthood, Lena showed amazing frivolity. She discovered that she was pregnant only in June, when she went home to Irkutsk. I went to see a gynecologist, and a strict doctor interrogated her: “Does the man know? Did you tell him you were in a position? Not? Need to say. So that later there will be no reproaches - so, they say, got rid of the child, which means that I am not needed. And in general, go and think carefully whether to leave the child or not.

While Lena was thinking, all deadlines had passed. The young man, having learned about the pregnancy of his beloved girl, did not jump with happiness and did not rush to circle with his beloved in his arms. He withdrew into himself and went to think about the situation. Mordashov thought for so long that the institute friends of Lena and Lesha became worried. Before their eyes, a beautiful love story threatened to turn into a rather ugly drama. Hostel friends pestered Lena with endless questions: “Well, how are you doing?” Lena just waved it off: “Guys, don’t bother, everything is fine with us.” A few more months passed, and everyone at the institute already knew that Lena was expecting a baby. Alyosha Mordashov thought. Finally, after the November holidays, he made up his mind and proposed to Lena: "Marry me."

On January 15, 1986, the son of Ilya was born to Alexei and Elena Mordashov. It soon became clear that the boy was seriously ill. The birth of a child forced Mordashov to look at things from a practical point of view. Three of them, with his wife and son, Mordashov lived in the same room in a student hostel. Scholarships, even higher ones, were barely enough to make ends meet. Moving up the scientific ladder within the walls of the institute did not promise either money or any clear prospects. Mordashov has not yet managed to make connections that would allow him to get a good position in Leningrad. In an attempt to somehow earn money, Mordashov got a job as an assistant at the department, wrote term papers for students for money ... But all this did not solve the problems that arose.

Alexei Mordashov did not enter graduate school. He says he didn't do it on purpose. A scientific career did not appeal to him, and life circumstances required decisive and active actions, and not sitting in scientific libraries and at the department ... Over time, Mordashov only strengthened in the correctness of his choice. In his opinion, the MBA degree, which he received in England, at Newcastle University, is more valuable in the modern world than the dubious authority of a Doctor of Economics.

After reflecting on his prospects in St. Petersburg after graduation, Mordashov came to the conclusion that nothing shines for him. He returned to Cherepovets with his wife and young son. The good name and acquaintances of the parents, who devoted their whole lives to the plant, allowed Alexei in August 1988 to become a senior economist in the labor organization bureau of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

From the general mass of employees, the young specialist stood out in that, when faced with difficulties, he did not get lost, but lane on them like a tank. In 1988, the order from the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy came to the plant: it was necessary to send a specialist with a higher education and a good knowledge of the German language to Austria for three months to study. There were five of them throughout Severstal. Four refused, explaining that they did not speak German well enough. And Mordashov went, because with his inherent self-confidence he said: "I freely translate with a dictionary." And four years later, at the age of 27, Mordashov became director of economics and finance.

Mordashov's career was almost ruined by one phone call. The then Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy, Serafim Kolpakov, demanded that the director of Severstal, Yuri Lipukhin, immediately remove the young promoter. The reason for this hostility of the minister was that Mordashov beat his son, who also underwent an internship in Austria.

Mordashov recalls this story with a characteristic cheeky laugh: Well, yes, it was. He wanted to relax, and I wanted to study. And he complained to his father.

How this story could have ended for the future owner of Severstal, if not for the intercession of Lipukhin, only God knows. Yuri Lipukhin tried to smooth the situation and, promising to deal with Mordashov, gradually defended his subordinate. Lipukhin attributed what happened to Mordashov's youth. However, subsequently Mordashov repeatedly demonstrated rigidity in relations with people.

In 1992, he nevertheless became director of economics and finance. The appointment was met with mixed reception. Dissatisfied conversations began among the management and workers: Mordashov was already very young, and he had a very mediocre attitude to metallurgy - there was a special distrust of economists in those years among the people. But Lipukhin enjoyed colossal prestige at the plant, and passions soon subsided.

Yuri Lipukhin was already 60 years old at that time. He was not a feeble old man, but he understood that he was tired of leading work. Therefore, he began to search for a person who could be entrusted with the management of the plant. It was a common practice of Soviet directors to prepare a successor for themselves. The active and serious Mordashov was suitable for this role, and Lipukhin wanted to take a closer look at him. Mordashov lived up to Lipukhin's expectations. Being proactive and independent, he was nevertheless a conscientious performer, an obedient student who showed respect for his mentor.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that Lipukhin entrusted Mordashov with the task of privatizing the plant. For the Soviet director, privatization in general was an incomprehensible and frightening phenomenon. Many had the feeling that, before reaching its completion, privatization would end up with all its inspirers and participants being sent to trample on the zone. It is unlikely that Lipukhin wanted to insure himself by entrusting the risky and dangerous line of work to a person who, in case of emergency, could be sacrificed ... Lipukhin's further frivolity simply does not give reason to suspect him of such foresight. Lipukhin simply decided that the educated and quick-witted Mordashov would certainly figure out what to do with this privatization that had fallen from nowhere ... And Mordashov met the mentor's expectations and even surpassed them. Under his leadership, a structure was created that was engaged in buying up vouchers, and then shares from workers.

This is how the Severstal-Invest company appeared, which was aptly nicknamed Severstal-Incest by the people for its too piquant proximity to the plant itself. Twenty-four percent of the shares of this new structure belonged to Severstal, and the rest to Mordashov.

To buy back shares, the plant needed a lot of money. To earn them, Severstal-Invest resorted to the usual tactics for that time - it became an intermediary between the plant and metal buyers. This scheme looked like this: The Cherepovets Iron and Steel Works sold its metal at the lowest price to Severstal-Invest. And she, in turn, resold the metal to Western consumers with a big profit. The resulting profit settled in Severstal-Invest. This money could be used to buy shares from the workers.

It was not difficult to buy shares from the workers. The workers did not attach much value to the "pieces of paper" that suddenly ended up in their hands. And besides, few believed that the plant could survive. Built at the behest of Stalin, Severstal was located thousands of kilometers from the ore and coal deposits needed for metal production. The country was in a fever from economic reforms and inflation... The plant itself was economically entirely dependent on Severstal-Invest. To convince the workers to sell their shares as soon as possible, the company did not pay wages for months. As a result, Mordashov collected 83% of the shares of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

The successful completion of privatization, carried out under the leadership of Mordashov, coincided with the release of the law on joint-stock companies. This law forbade combining the positions of CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors. As a result, Lipukhin offered the successor, who had already earned confidence, to take the place of the director of Severstal.

However, the working class of the plant interpreted such a step of the "experienced" director then in their own way. It was said that Lipukhin decided to wait out the incomprehensible off-season market, assigning Mordashov the trivial role of a zits-chairman.

But Yuri Lipukhin could not even imagine that by that moment the position of the pieces on the chessboard, which he considered his own, had changed. And in the most radical way. While working on the privatization of Severstal, Mordashov acquired some shares for the enterprise, but mostly for himself. By the beginning of 1996, a controlling stake in Severstal was owned by the Severstal-Invest company led by Mordashov. That is, de jure Alexei Mordashov became the owner of the plant. And in response to the offer to become a director, Mordashov brought this new information to the attention of management.

Eyewitnesses retell the circumstances of these events in different ways. They say that Mordashov did not particularly stand on ceremony with the old management of the plant, but directly said: “Now I am the owner. Whoever is not satisfied with this can look for another job. Mordashov perceives such stories in his usual manner - rounding his eyes in surprise and bursting into cheerful laughter: What do you find in this? I didn’t do it illegally, it was approved by the council of the labor collective, so it was not amateur performance.

Indeed, what's wrong with that? On the contrary, we must give Alexey Aleksandrovich his due: he managed to privatize one of the largest metallurgical plants in the country without unnecessary noise, blood and shooting, as was often the case then.

Having changed his position at the plant, Mordashov decided to change his family life. In 1996, he officially divorced his wife. Son Ilya at that time was 10 years old. Exactly how much it took Alexei Mordashov to make his way from a poor student to the owner of one of the most powerful and profitable metallurgical enterprises in Russia. Outwardly, these ten years were not marked by any unexpected events and dangerous turns. But this is only an appearance. Severstal was the center of confrontation between the main forces dividing the market.

At the end of 1992, Vladimir Lisin arrived in Cherepovets, representing at that time the interests of the Trans World Group, which was pursuing a policy of aggressive expansion in the Russian metallurgical industry. Lisin allegedly arrived to discuss a certain project related to Moscow real estate, but his mission was more of an intelligence one. Following him, TWG chief Mikhail Chernoy himself rushed to the plant with proposals to organize trade financing and offshore schemes for Severstal. Lipukhin refused Chernoy, but TWG's attempts to "enter" the plant did not end there. On behalf of TWG, Iskander Makhmudov and Oleg Deripaska visited Severstal at regular intervals. However, they left with nothing. Severstal was saved from power attacks by TWG, one might say, by a happy coincidence. "TWG" at that time was fighting on several fronts - and it was imprudent to open another one.

There were many objects for which there was a struggle, and we simply did not receive due attention, - Mordashov explains the reason that he managed to survive the era of the redistribution of property without shocks. But there is a certain amount of slyness in this explanation. In addition to TWG, other players in the metallurgical market, dubious international businessmen, and local criminal groups showed interest in the plant.

Mordashov somehow managed to avoid clashes with groups interested in controlling the plant. Sometimes, knowing that representatives of one or another large group were calling him to invite him to Moscow for negotiations, he simply did not pick up the phone. This silence could go on for weeks. It was necessary to have strong nerves to withstand such a game of silence. However, in addition to the external circle of interests, there was another, much more significant and subtle - the circle of internal confrontation. The young director of Severstal, in fact, was in a hostile environment and, knowing this very well, played his own game, which was aimed at conquering and strengthening his power and destroying the influence of the old leadership. So the ten-year period of the formation of Mordashov as the owner of the plant was a period of internal rebirth.

I became arrogant, cynical, tougher and more self-confident, - says Mordashov about what happened to him in these "quiet" years. - My morals are deteriorating, no doubt. But, probably, if I had been modest, delicate, I would not have been a director, and Severstal would not have been Severstal.

First comes power, then money, and after them - permissiveness, - Elena Mordashova explained the reasons for the divorce a few years after she broke up with her husband. - The most dangerous thing for a novice businessman is “caisson disease”. This is when it flew up with the cork up, looked around: but everything is possible. And we will - everything! My husband got a company car and a personal secretary. Well, immediately - he's young, handsome - the girls began to hang on him. Once there was a celebration at the plant, we came together, but all evening Alyosha frolicked in front of my eyes with a young dancer. It was terribly embarrassing. And then he stopped taking me with him at all.

Once Elena returned home from the dacha and found traces of an outside woman in the apartment. She asked her husband: “Who was it?” - "Secretary Olya." - "What they were doing?" - Drinking tea. There were no jealousy scenes, well, maybe only one.

This is when my husband, right in front of my eyes, began to arrange a date with one woman Elena recalls. - In that situation, the mother-in-law saved the family, she told her son: “If anything, I will choose Lena and Ilya” ...

But that didn't help either.

The husband went through several more novels and loves. I guessed that it was eating him. All the years he let me know that I ruined his life, that I forced him to marry me. In fact, I didn’t drag Alexei behind me like a calf on a leash. We had everything - both love and family ...

Every day Elena woke up with the hope of a miracle that would return love, tenderness and trust to their relationship. Every day for several years, a cruel disappointment awaited her. The husband did not sleep at home. Or attacked his wife with rudeness and reproaches.

Soon Alexey Mordashov moved to live with one of the secretaries of Severstal, ironically, also Elena. And after the divorce, he brought an agreement on the division of property to his ex-wife for signature: a three-room apartment and a “nine” car went into her ownership. Shares, shares and bank accounts remained at the disposal of the spouse. Under the second agreement - about alimony - the ex-wife and son were to receive an amount equal to about six hundred dollars a month, plus another six thousand dollars a year - for medical treatment and recreation. At that time, by the standards of Cherepovets, this was a huge amount. But Elena understood that in comparison with her husband's income, this money was a beggarly and humiliating handout, especially considering the serious illness of her son and the fact that Elena, forced to take care of the child, did not work. When, according to Elena, she tried to challenge some points of the contract, her husband said: “I earned it all ...”

Elena didn't make any noise. After the divorce, she lived quietly in Cherepovets, jealously watching the success of her ex-husband. In 2001, through one of the central newspapers, Elena Mordashova delivered an “Open Letter to All Women”. She wrote:

Many years ago I married a student Alyosha Mordashov. A son was born, life was very difficult for us. The child was seriously ill, everything fell on my shoulders - the house, the family, the care of my husband. During the day I nursed my son, and in the evenings I worked as a cleaner. Behind him was the institute, a diploma with honors. Life has set a choice - either a family, or graduate school and a career. Of course, the son's health and the husband's peace of mind were more important. Working as a cleaner, I earned us an apartment.

The whole country enthusiastically read the sad story of the ex-wife of an oligarch, abandoned by her husband and left without a livelihood.

... My 15-year-old Ilya recently told me: “I don’t want to be like you. You are kind, you forgive everyone everything. That is why your life is complicated and difficult. And only bastards like my dad achieve success.

After the letter, Elena Mordashova's next step was to go to court demanding the division of property and the recovery of alimony from her ex-husband in the amount of ... $ 20 million. Elena managed not only to draw public attention to her position, but also to achieve the arrest of a large block of shares in one of the leading enterprises in Russia - Severstal.

Elena explained her decision to apply to the court to revise the old alimony agreement as follows: I knocked on the soul of Alexei, but I realized that there was no heart there. My ex-husband does not know the categories of the soul. He is indifferent to the fate of his own son. I thought that a father would wake up in Alexei, but this did not happen. He could not see Ilya for weeks. He was not interested in his son's health. I just felt sorry for my son. And then I decided to protect him.

Soon after the scandal broke out, the details of which spilled out into the press and on television, in narrow circles they started talking about the fact that Alexei Mordashov's competitors, in particular Iskander Makhmudov and Oleg Deripaska, were behind the open letter and going to court, in particular, they provided financial and legal support to the abandoned wife . However, soon the claims of Elena Mordashova to her ex-husband were rejected in court. In 2002, the chairman of the board of directors of Severstal, Alexei Mordashov, defended his right to pay his son from a previous marriage no more than 10,600 rubles a month. Mordashov was pleased with the result of the court decision and, without any embarrassment, gave very direct and detailed comments. Their essence was that he had nothing to be ashamed of. Mordashov emphasized that he achieved everything he achieved himself, and his wife did not have the right to demand from him even the money that he generously gives her, and even more so - the shares of the enterprise: I will not allow anyone to interfere with production. Shares are not just pieces of paper, they are an opportunity to influence the process on which the lives of thousands of people depend.

After the scandalous trial, Mordashov became even more embittered at his wife for inciting her son into squabbles with his father. Alexei Mordashov does not see his guilt in what happened. In one of the interviews, the question of a journalist about whether he believes that over time his son will be able to forgive him caused Alexei Mordashov sincere bewilderment. Forgive - do not forgive ... This is not the main thing at all, - answered Mordashov and proceeded to discuss the success of Severstal.

Another person to whom Mordashov “has nothing to apologize for,” the former general director Lipukhin, speaks of Mordashov with a mixture of bitter resentment and ... undisguised respect. You can hate and despise Mordashov as a person, but as a master and manager, he was able to achieve a lot. Severstal is one of the most profitable enterprises in the industry. The former director of Severstal admits this not without pride.

In 2003, Forbes magazine put Alexei Mordashov in 348th place in the ranking of the richest people on the planet. In the list of Russian billionaires, he took the ninth line. Experts have estimated his fortune at $1.2 billion. Over the next four years, Mordashov increased his fortune by more than nine times. In 2007, according to Forbes, Mordashov's fortune totaled $11.2 billion, making him one of the ten richest people in Russia.

Having become the owner of Severstal, Mordashov resolutely set about bringing the plant out of the crisis and reforming its activities. First of all, he brought in Western consultants and began the fight to reduce costs. He sold non-core assets belonging to the plant, such as, for example, a furniture factory, and began reducing the number of employees. Before the arrival of Mordashov, more than fifty thousand people worked at the plant. Mordashov reduced the staff to 37 thousand people.

Obsolete productions were closed without delay. Instead of patching holes, Mordashov began to develop new technological lines for the production of goods that are in great demand on the market. The plant began to produce steel for pipes and galvanized metal for the automotive industry. Starting to cooperate with Western partners, Mordashov increased exports. As a result of such a well-thought-out and adamant policy, the plant quickly began to rise to its feet. Even the crisis that broke out in 1998 played into Mordashov's hands. As a result of the crisis, the dollar rose against the ruble and exports became more profitable.

At the Cherepovets plant, Mordashov created a unique system to stimulate the activity of employees. Each area of ​​the enterprise has a person responsible for reviewing initiatives. For a sensible proposal, the employee is necessarily encouraged. This may be a bonus, or maybe a promotion, an appointment as the head of a working group.

With those who do not work well, Mordashov also acts decisively: It is better to fire immediately, because production does not need such people.. They say that when, during an audit in the purchasing service, several people were caught by the hand, who put part of the amount from the order into their pockets, the general director fired the entire department.

Once Mordashov, along with a number of other Russian businessmen, was invited to America for an economic forum. At one of the conferences devoted to cooperation with Russia, the Americans threw out a whole set of negative arguments: they say that they steal in Russia and the like. In protest, Russian businessmen began to leave the hall. One of them later said:

We are standing outside the doors, suddenly we hear - the hall exploded with laughter. Then we found out why. After listening to the reasoning of American businessmen, Mordashov stood up and indignantly declared: “Who steals? Where are they stealing? Are they stealing from us? What kind of nonsense? I cordoned off a warehouse with nickel with barbed wire at my factory, put machine gunners in - and no one steals!

In 2004, the Americans no longer laughed at Alexei Mordashov. In December, Severstal acquired the seventh largest US steelmaker, Rouge Industries Inc., in terms of production. This company was founded by Henry Ford to provide steel for his own car factories. In 2003, the company actually went bankrupt. Mordashov promised the Americans that he would do for the company what he once did for Severstal. Much to the surprise of the Americans, the use of Severstal's experience on their territory made it possible to bring the "pearl in the crown of Henry Ford" out of the crisis and regain the company's lost ground.

Mordashov and his team claim they can make any venture profitable. Over the past few years, he has become the owner of the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, the Izhora Pipe Plant in St. Petersburg, the Karelian Okatysh Joint-Stock Company, the Olenegorsk Mining and Processing Plant, etc. Severstal has its own airline, television center, newspapers, and under its control the Vologda Radio areas.

Not stopping there, Mordashov launched an attack even on the timber industry. Back in 1997, he acquired the Ust-Izhora Plywood Plant. Subsequently, he created a joint production with the Finnish company UPM. Aleksey Mordashov plans to develop sawmill production in Vologda and build a pulp and paper mill.

In 2003, Alexei Mordashov became Vladimir Putin's confidant in the upcoming presidential elections. Since that time, observers have not ceased to make predictions about the future position of Mordashov in the “political configuration”.

There were rumors that Alexei Mordashov was considered by the federal authorities as a candidate for the post of one of the vice-premiers. Probably, the reason for this was the visit of Valentina Matvienko to Severstal in 2004. She was pleased with what she saw and in one of the interviews she said that there was a potential member of the government in Cherepovets. Such conversations make Mordashov laugh.

At least outwardly, the oligarch Mordashov demonstrates loyalty to Cherepovets, which he is not ready to exchange for anything. Mordashov admits that Moscow suppresses and frightens him, and he could not live here. In an interview, Alexei Mordashov emotionally told how, on one of his rare visits to Moscow, he was amazed at how much Moscow realities do not correspond to life in other cities of Russia. Mordashov was especially struck by the abundance of expensive jewelry stores.

I just don’t understand where it all comes from in a rather poor country, he wondered.

The Vologda billionaire is reputed to be, if not a stingy, then a very economical person. The Yak-40 aircraft, on which the oligarch flies, does not differ in the exclusivity of the interior design and belongs to the Severstal company. Mordashov does not have his own yacht. Even the Swiss watch "Frank Muller", which he prefers, is not something outstanding by the standards of the Russian financial elite: they cost about 30 thousand dollars. In choosing cars, Mordashov also adheres to very modest requirements, preferring mass-produced cars. For a long time, Mordashov drove a Volvo. One day, journalists witnessed how, at the capital's airport, Alexei Mordashov very persistently demanded monetary compensation for a buckle torn from the bag of one of the girls who accompanied the businessman on a trip. Mordashov prefers to give inexpensive gifts to foreign business partners, for example, Russian nesting dolls dear to his heart. Mordashov vehemently criticizes the existing gap in Russia between the rich and the poor. But the oligarch's preoccupation with issues of social inequality does not find a response in the hearts of the proletariat. For workers at the American plant that Severstal bought, the Russian oligarch's frugality has resulted in a significant reduction in their "unreasonably high" salaries.

But, being thrifty, Alexey Mordashov tries to live up to the idea of ​​himself as a socially responsible representative of big business. Mordashov is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bolshoi Theater, supports sports, and participates in social activities.

Despite the Vologda origin, Mordashov is considered to be a "St. Petersburg team". He is one of the Northwestern oligarchs who showed up in Moscow after Putin's inauguration. Alexei Mordashov was brought closer to Vladimir Putin by his friendship with St. Petersburg oligarch Vladimir Kogan. At one time, Vladimir Kogan claimed a controlling stake in Severstal. However, Kogan did not have enough resources to buy the plant. He limited himself to Severstal Bank - Metallurgical Commercial Bank.

As they say, Kogan got the bank almost for free. You can even say that Mordashov gave it as a gift, leaving himself a purely nominal percentage of the shares. According to experts, in this way Mordashov demonstrated his loyalty to the "Petersburg group". Like it or not, but in the list of “second wave oligarchs” who replaced the adventurous figures of the era of wild capitalism, Mordashov occupies a strong position as a state-minded businessman.

Detailed biographies of the builders of oligarchic capitalism in Russia will not be written soon. Historians have yet to work with the archives and newspapers of that time in order to answer the exciting question: how and why people who did not have a legal status suddenly became owners of huge enterprises, mines, ports ... These questions will be asked more than once not only by ordinary people, journalists, but also the state.

And then, probably, many of the elderly Russian oligarchs will startle, waking up at night in their bed. They would pay dearly if everyone forgot about the skeletons in their closets. Or by that time the current oligarchs will be replaced by those who were brought up on the example of their ruthlessness, composure and uncompromisingness - their own children and the children of those who were thrown overboard the ship of modernity, which in the early 90s headed for capitalism?

In 2004, the first Russian issue of Forbes magazine chose Alexei Mordashov as the main character of the issue. An article was devoted to him under the telling heading "Grip of Steel". The magazine restored the story of Alexei Mordashov's entry into business and spoke in detail about all the mechanisms that allowed him to gain control over the metallurgical giant. A week later, the Cherepovets newspaper Rech, financed by Mordashov, reprinted the Forbes material on its pages. But when comparing these two texts, it became clear that the material published in Rech differs markedly from the article in Forbes. The reprinted article was thoroughly edited: someone's caring hand cut out from the article the most painful moments for Alexei Mordashov regarding the privatization of Severstal and his relationship with the old management of the plant ...

With history, alas, such things do not pass. Although the time to draw conclusions as to whether the ninth wave of Russian capitalism turned out to be evil or good for Russia is still very early. There is too much personal in the assessments of the life and activities of Russian billionaires. However, personal every year goes further and further.

Elena Mordashova, ex-wife of the "steel king", lives in Moscow. Today she works in a commercial company and does not want to discuss the fate and actions of her husband. She considers her six-year-old attempt to avenge her ruined life and her abandoned son stupid and naive. She is not going to repeat it. The one who has more money is right, she is sure.

Mordashov's son, Ilya, did not want to take his father's surname and took his mother's surname. Ilya studies at the institute, where he is known not as the exiled heir to the steel empire, but as a laconic and reserved guy. Ilya does not tell anyone about his father, whom he last saw more than seven years ago.

The former general director of Severstal, Yuri Lipukhin, after his "overthrow" from the post of general director of the plant, gave only one long interview. The children and relatives of Lipukhin protect their elderly father from the obsessive attention of the press and those who are trying to use the former head of the plant to attack Mordashov. Most of the time Lipukhin lives in Sochi, reading books and tending the garden.

In a new marriage, Alexei Mordashov had three children ...

The oligarch found a job for his beloved just a hundred meters from the matrimonial bedroom

Ranked fourth by Forbes$ 24 billion) Alexey Mordashov gave his third wife Marina a private elementary school Wunderpark. Now the former fashion model, who gave birth to three charming children to the oligarch, can watch their academic progress from the windows of the boudoir. After all, they go directly to the buildings of this elite institution near Moscow, a month of training in which costs 132 500 rubles.

In fact, Marina's profession is unknown. She is called a model simply out of respect for her current social status and supposed beauty. After all, no one saw the girl. Maybe she's not beautiful at all. Also, some sources indicate that Marina was a dancer, a waitress, and even a stand girl. That is, a representative of not too intellectual professions, far from the leadership of a private educational institution. By the way, official representatives of the oligarch also do not confirm her status as a wife, offering to call a woman simply a life partner.

The uncertain status does not allow Marina to claim the assets of a partner in the event of a divorce. Already twice burned in similar processes, which are also covered by all the central media, the billionaire, just in case, spread straws. At the same time, the owner of Severstal clearly values ​​his chosen one and behaves with her following the example of Tajik nouveaux riches. He locked his “prey” in a golden cage of a palace near Moscow, does not attend any social events with her, and even bought a business for her within walking distance from the bedroom.

From the estate Mordashovs in Wunderpark, as from Papa Carlo's closet to the theater, a secret door with a combination lock leads. Through her, 10-year-old Masha, 7-year-old Anastasia and 5-year-old Daniel go to primary school and kindergarten. These kids are today considered one of the richest heirs in Russia. Each of them accounts for almost $7 billion.

Three adult offspring of Alexei Alexandrovich from two previous marriages can only dream of such a thing. For example, the eldest son Ilya did not get anything at all.

The estate of the Mordashovs. Photo by Ruslan Voronoy

mistress dancer

The scandalous parting of the "steel king" Alexey Mordashov with first wife Elena Mityukova opened a series of high-profile divorces of Russian oligarchs, who in unison changed their fighting girlfriends for young upstarts.

The marriage of students of the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute can be called forced. Possessing the texture of a Hollywood western hero, Alex married Elena after learning that she was pregnant. Two "Lenin" scholarships that young parents received were not enough. Alexey had to hack in three places, and Elena worked as a cleaning lady in the evenings. But the relationship cracked not during difficult student times, but a few years later, when the couple returned to Cherepovets and Alexei began to raise really big money at Severstal.

First comes power, then money, and after them - permissiveness, - Elena Mordashova explained the reasons for the divorce. - Once there was a celebration at the plant, we came together, but all evening Alyosha frolicked in front of my eyes with a young dancer. It was terribly embarrassing. And then he stopped taking me with him at all.

During the divorce, Mordashov gave his ex-wife a three-room apartment and a car, and also paid child support in the amount of one thousand dollars a month. Later, Elena tried to sue at least $ 20 million, but the claim, of course, failed miserably.

The first wife of the oligarch Elena Mityukova was left penniless. Photo: Valery Melnikov/Kommersant

Accounting ability

The second chosen one of Alexei Alexandrovich was also called Elena. She served as an accountant at an enterprise where Mordashov was financial director. A classic office romance ended with a wedding. In 1999, Mordashov had a second son, Cyril, and a year later, Nikita. The oligarch admits that he was then a bad husband and father. Business has always come first. You should have made your first billion, not changed diapers.

I became arrogant, cynical, tougher and more self-confident. But, probably, if I had been modest, delicate, I would not have been a director, and Severstal would not have been Severstal, ”the capitalist explains his position in life.

The marriage lasted about 10 years. The divorce went quietly. The accountant Elena knew too much to leave her penniless, and Mordashov signed a settlement agreement that provides the woman with a comfortable existence. The sons were not spared either.

More recently, when alimony payments ended, he bought them off with 65 percent of the shares of the gold mining company Nordgold, whose capitalization is estimated by analysts at about $ 1.3 - 1.5 billion.

Thus, 19-year-old Kirill and 18-year-old Nikita Mordashov received shares worth $420-490 million each. Such money may have turned their heads, but an experienced accountant mother is unlikely to allow them to squander the inheritance.

pussy namedLady M

The oligarch spent the May holidays with his family on his 64-meter sports yacht Lady M. The boat, worth about $60 million, cruised along the picturesque Turkish coast, between the cities of Datca and Marmaris.

It is easy to guess that the letter "M" in the name of the yacht means Maria. For the same reason, the nose of the vessel is decorated with a caryatid in the form of a steel pussy, apparently symbolizing the Lady herself.

Forbes, the main shareholder of Severstal, Alexei Mordashov, became the richest businessman in Russia for the first time. His fortune is $16.8 billion, which is $4 million more than last year's leader of the Russian list of billionaires - the founder of NOVATEK Leonid Mikhelson, who took second place. Third place is still occupied by the owner of the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works Vladimir Lisin (16.1 billion).

It was Mordashov's face that appeared on the cover of the very first issue of Forbes magazine, published in Russia in 2004, although at that time he only occupied 9th place in the "golden hundred" of oligarchs. In an interview with the publication, Mordashov then said that he became a “steel magnate” gradually: he himself comes from Cherepovets, when choosing a profession, he followed in the footsteps of his parents, who worked at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

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In early childhood, he was diagnosed with a serious congenital injury, and, by his own admission, he already knew for sure that he would not be a pilot or an astronaut. At school, Mordashov, in his own words, was the right boy, classmates unanimously elected him head of the class. The class teacher so often cited Lesha as an example and urged students to look up to Mordashov that at some point Lesha was jokingly nicknamed Template.

Later, Mordashov graduated from the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute, in 1988 the young specialist returned to his native city and began his career at the plant, to which his relatives gave their whole lives. The future oligarch began as a senior economist, successfully moving up the career ladder. At the age of 27, he was noticed by the director of the plant, Yuri Lipukhin, and in 1993 instructed him to take up the privatization of the enterprise. Three years later, the company Severstal-invest, created by Lipukhin, bought out 43% of the plant's shares, and in the late 1990s Mordashov moved Lipukhin from the post of director of the plant to the position of chairman of the board of directors, and in 1999 bought out 17% of the plant's shares.

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Despite the Vologda origin, Mordashov is considered to be a "St. Petersburg team". He is one of the Northwestern oligarchs who showed up in Moscow after Putin's inauguration. Alexei Mordashov was brought closer to Vladimir Putin by his friendship with St. Petersburg oligarch Vladimir Kogan.

According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, financial market participants speak positively about Mordashov, emphasizing that he "did not rob the country, earning money on sad loans-for-shares auctions and other speculations." As analysts emphasize, it was Mordashov who actively supported Russia's entry into the WTO, and it was his recommendation that President Putin took into account in this matter. Russian metallurgists and Mordashov personally benefited greatly from the devaluation of the ruble, increasing revenue and profitability.

Kommersant.ru

Director of IK Forum Roman Parshin noted in an interview with MK that the growth of Mordashov's well-being is due to the fact that steel prices are rising, while he did not rule out the influence of the company's strong lobbying resource.

The price and demand for steel directly determine Severstal's profits and Mr. Mordashov's income. Severstal's revenue in the first half of 2017 grew by 38.1%. At the same time, the lobbying resource also works well for Severstal: quite recently, at the end of July, Gazprombank sold Severstal the rights to claim the debt of Metal Group LLC for 12 billion rubles and sold it for half its value. By the way, Metal Group, in turn, owns a license to develop the central part of the Yakovlevsky iron ore deposit - this is a tasty morsel for any metallurgical enterprise, because the ore mined there does not require enrichment. So to say, the "golden grail", or rather, steel: 9.6 billion tons of excellent quality ore.

At the end of spring, Aleksey Mordashov's yacht "Lady M" caused a sensation among European journalists. The ship, worth more than $50 million, has docked at several European ports. So, in the Spanish city of Malaga, it has become a real attraction. Still, a 65-meter three-deck ship with a helipad, six double guest cabins and seven double cabins for 14 crew members has a maximum speed of 28 knots (51 km / h) and is able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 8 days.

It is also known about Mordashov that he is interested in poetry, painting, and is fond of active winter sports, in particular, skiing.

Lenta.ru

The first time the owner of Severstal got married at the age of 19, when he was still in his 2nd year at the institute. His chosen one was 5-year student Elena, originally from Irkutsk. Soon they had a son. In 1996, Alexey and Elena divorced. According to the ex-wife, due to the rapid career growth of Alexei, the big money that accompanied their appearance of permissiveness and his betrayals. In 2002, a woman tried through the courts to obtain a share in the capital of her ex-spouse, but to no avail. The court did not grant her request.

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The second wife of the oligarch a few years later was his colleague economist Elena, who worked in the accounting department of the plant. Soon they officially got married. The couple had two sons: in 1999 - Cyril, in 2000 - Nikita.

24smi.org

In 2015, Forbes reported that the billionaire already had a new life partner, whose name is Larisa. He allegedly also had new heirs. However, this information was not confirmed either by the oligarch himself or by his representatives.

June 17, 2017, 21:04

And what are we all about Whisperer and Giraffe ... We have other persons in big business.

Alexey Mordashov was born in Cherepovets in 1965. His father graduated from the Gorky Polytechnic Institute with a degree in electrical engineering, worked at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.

Parents were not zealous in raising Alyosha. They didn't have time for that, and the boy didn't bother either. Calm, independent child. At school, Mordashov was correct, classmates unanimously elected him the head of the class. The class teacher cited Lesha so often as an example that at some point he was nicknamed Template.

Komsomolets and future member of the CPSU Alexei Mordashov graduated with honors from the Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute, where he met Anatoly Chubais, who taught there. After the first course, he came to him as an assistant to the department. Obviously, this was the first success of the future "steel king".

At that time, Alexei actively attended the "circle of young economists", which was headed by Chubais. This circle included such people as Alexei Kudrin, Pyotr Mostovoy, Vladimir Kogan, whose names would soon become known throughout Russia. At the same time, Mordashov did not get lost against their background. Chubais even persuaded him to go to graduate school and stay in Leningrad, but Alexei always believed that it was better to be the first guy in the village than the second in the city, and returned home.

There he got a job as a senior economist at a metallurgical plant. The young specialist immediately attracted the attention of management, who sent him for an internship at the Austrian steel company VoestAlpine. But there Mordashov quarreled with the son of the Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR Serafim Kolpakov. It came to a fight. Kolpakov demanded that the general director of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, Yuri Lipukhin, immediately dismiss the insolent from the plant. But he defended his employee.

Mordashov was very lucky - Lipukhin's wife liked him. And when the time came for the corporatization of ChMK, it was she who persuaded her husband to trust the 27-year-old financial director. As a result, Yuri Lipukhin was left without a position and without a plant.

In 1996, Mordashov became the general director of the Severstal company managing the plant, and Lipukhin took over as chairman of the board of directors. Management accumulated 43% of the shares bought from employees in Severstal-Invest, and later transferred them to another structure - Severstal-Garant.

At first, according to Lipukhin, the partners agreed on equal shares in this company.

“After he became a director, he and his friends went to some islands, walked for a week. And when he returned, he came and said: it’s equally not quite normal for me, give you 49%, and 51% for me, ”Lipukhin later said. - I didn't care. I said, come on, I agree.

When net income rose from $111 million to $453 million in 2000, disagreements arose over where to put the money. “In the spring of 1999, Mordashov arbitrarily, without my knowledge, bought back 17% of the shares that belonged to Severstal-Invest,” Lipukhin said. - I went up to him and said: Alyosha, you can’t act like that. His answer was extremely short: it was not written anywhere.” Mordashov denies the existence of any gentlemen's agreements.

Yuri Lipukhin was his godfather when Alexei decided to convert. In 2011, the veteran died of a heart attack in Canada; his son Victor is in charge of his affairs. Mordashov also headed Severstal JSC, which served as the basis for the creation of the diversified holding Severstal Group. Industrial assets gradually passed into his ownership - shares of the St. Petersburg, Tuapse and Vostochny ports, coal mines, railway cars, the Kolomna Diesel Locomotive Plant, UAZ ...

In general, Mordashov burst into the ranks of the newest oligarchs at great speed, pushing out such bison as Abramovich and Potanin. Thanks to the stranglehold in the Vologda region, he earned the nickname Iron Boy. And Mordashov himself says this about himself: "Tanks are not afraid of dirt."

A separate conversation is the personal life of Mordashov. In 2001, Elena, the ex-wife of a billionaire, published an “Open letter to all women” in one of the newspapers.

Here are the quotes. “Many years ago I married a student Alyosha Mordashov. A son was born, life was very difficult for us. The child was seriously ill, everything fell on my shoulders - home, family, worries about my husband. During the day I nursed my son, and in the evenings I worked as a cleaner ... I earned money for our apartment.

And five years later, Alexei Mordashov became a millionaire and owner of factories, newspapers, steamships. And he left. Then he divided the property, as it should be for a rich husband: his wife - a miserable apartment, an old "nine". For himself - everything he owns ... There could be no question of justice.

He said: “And you can’t think. Try to encroach on at least something of mine - I will deprive you of everything left, I will take your son away from you. You don’t want Ilya to suffer without you, do you?” I had no doubt then that one day I could "wake up" next to my own head...

During a divorce in 1996, an apartment in Cherepovets, a VAZ-2109 car and a small amount of money went to the wife and child. Alimony for the maintenance of their common child, Ilya (b. 1985), was paid by the entrepreneur in the amount of 106 times the minimum wage (in 2003, the minimum wage was 600 rubles). That is 63,600 rubles.

Elena tried in court to obtain the right to a share in the property of her ex-husband, but achieved nothing.

Elena also became Mordashov's new wife, with whom he had a real office romance. She worked as an accountant at Severstal. They collided in the corridors and on the stairs, swam together in the pool on adjacent paths, and in June 1997 they got married.

“In September 1999, our son Cyril was born. Alexei was with me during childbirth, holding my hand. The next morning, he gave me pearl earrings and a necklace, - later said the second wife of Mordashov. - A few days before 2001, I gave Alexei, as he himself says, the best New Year's gift in his life - his son Nikita ... Alexei simply adores kids. He is a very gentle dad."

Now Mordashov has a third wife, Marina. They have two daughters and a son.

The eldest, Masha, studies at the Wunderpark school near Moscow, which was opened by her mother, five-year-old Anastasia is brought up at home with three-year-old Daniil. A month of education in the 1st grade of the Wunderpark elementary school costs 132,500 rubles.

The hot-tempered nature of Alexei Mordashov makes itself felt from time to time. So, once he made a scandal to the employees of the business terminal of Vnukovo-3 airport. The oligarch was indignant that one of his “girlfriends”, who accompanied him on the flight, had a buckle broken on a ladies’ backpack. Because of this, the "steel king" gave a dressing down to the airport staff, demanding to pay "a piece of bucks" for the damage.

Alexey Mordashov owns the yacht Lady M (65 m). She is not included in the list of the most expensive yachts in the world, but nevertheless, her owner has something to be proud of. He owns the most expensive US-built aluminum yacht, PalmerJohnson. The Lady M has luxurious accommodations for 12 guests in 6 cabins. On board there is also a seven-meter swimming pool and a helipad. With a maximum speed of 28 knots (about 50 km / h), the boat is able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 8 days. The nose of the yacht is decorated with a metal figure of a one and a half meter mighty jaguar.