Leonard Blavatnik

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In 1986, Blavatnik founded the holding company, Access Industries Holdings, of which he is chairman and president. The New York-based business controls 21% of LyondellBasell, the world's largest producer of polypropylene. Through Access Industries Holdings Blavatnik owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Blavatnik bought up former state assets in Russia that were privatized by the government. Blavatnik began his business career by accumulating shares in aluminum smelters in the period of privatisation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did this via his holding company, Access Industries. He has been described as a victor in Russia's "aluminum wars". Blavatnik made his wealth through the acquisition of these commodities.

One of his investments, Sual, later became part of United Company Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer. Blavatnik was a board member of Rusal from 2007 to 2016. The company also invested in regional electricity generating stations, which they used to supply power to their energy-intensive aluminium businesses. In a 2002 interview, Blavatnik told Bloomberg he was even considering creating his own railways.

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

Blavatnik and Vekselberg initially obtained a stake in the Irkutsk Aluminum Plant. They accumulated smelters and plants until their company Sual had become the second-largest aluminum firm in Russia.

In 1996, they obtained a coal mine in Kazakhstan.

In 1997, Blavatnik Access Industries united with Viktor Vekselberg's Renova Corp and Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, to form a company AAR (Alfa, Access, Renova). Blavatnik’s key role within the group was to act as a connection to western businesses such as British Petroleum. Fridman, who was highly politically connected, had been a member of Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle in the mid 1990s.

The first order of business for AAR was to buy 40 per cent of a struggling oil producer Tyumen Oil (TNK) for $800 million. TNK was one of few remaining state-owned oil companies. Tyumen Oil was auctioned off with criteria that exactly matched AAR. AAR far outbid its competitors but did not end up buying the agreed sum. AAR reportedly paid just a quarter of the sum. TNK then went on an acquisition spree, alighting on the oil company Sidanco, which was part-owned by the U.K. oil giant, British Petroleum. In 1999, TNK acquired Sidanco's best assets via bankruptcy proceedings.

BP later sued TNK in the New York courts, claiming that the Sidanco assets were acquired illegally. The 1999 lawsuit was resolved in 2003 when British Petroleum acquired TNK, for $8 billion, forming TNK-BP, one of the largest oil companies in Russia. The deal, labelled in the press as "Russia's deal of the decade" gave BP unprecedented access to vital Russian oil and gas. It was the first time that a foreign company was in control of a major producer in Russia's energy heartland. The deal also made Len Blavatnik, Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Viktor Vekselberg, who controlled half of TNK-BP, billions of dollars. At the time, Fridman told the press: "Any business should be sold if you're offered the right price. If you don't, the market will punish you. Or God. Or maybe they are the same thing." At the time of the purchase, Blavatnik, a U.S. citizen, was living in New York.

In 2013, the Russian oil company Rosneft paid AAR $28 billion in cash for its 50% stake in TNK-BP. Their original investment was $8 billion of assets. Up to this point, AAR had taken $19 billion in dividends from the joint venture. The sale represented the liquidation of the majority of Blavatnik's Russian assets.

In 1999, Blavatnik sought to obtain the competing oil company Chernogorneft, which was being auctioned off. Blavatnik's TNK company obtained Chernogorneft at $180 million, even though the company had produced $1.2 billion worth of oil the year before.

In August 2005, Access Industries bought petrochemicals and plastics manufacturer Basell Polyolefins from Royal Dutch Shell and BASF for $5.7 billion. On December 20, 2007, Basell completed its acquisition of the Lyondell Chemical Company for an enterprise value of approximately $19 billion. The resulting company, LyondellBasell Industries then became the world's eighth largest chemical company based on net sales. On January 6, 2009, the U.S. operations of LyondellBasell Industries filed for bankruptcy.

On April 30, 2010, LyondellBasell emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a significantly improved financial position. As part of its exit financing, LyondellBasell raised $3.25 billion of first priority debt as well as $2.8 billion through the rights offering jointly underwritten by Access Industries, Apollo Management, and Ares Management. LyondellBasell stock has increased 103% in value since April 2010. Access currently owns approximately 21% of LyondellBasell.

In 2010, Blavatnik sued JPMorgan Chase after losing $100 million by allegedly following Morgan's advice three years earlier to buy mortgage securities with AAA credit ratings. In 2013, the New York State Supreme Court ordered JPMorgan Chase to pay Blavatnik $50 million in damages.

At the time, Blavatnik told the New York Times: "The small guy can't get anywhere with suits like this. I am a wealthy man. I will spend whatever it takes."

In early 2010, Access Industries was reported as one of a handful of bidders for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

On May 6, 2011, Warner Music Group announced its sale to Access for US$3.3 billion. On July 20, 2011, an Access affiliate acquired Warner Music Group for $3.3 billion. Though WMG was the World's third largest record company and considered a "trophy asset", it was also laden down with debt and struggling to find an answer to online music piracy. In May 2020, Warner Music announced it would proceed with an initial public offering that valued the company at $13.3 billion. The company listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in June 2020. At which point, Blavatnik sold $1.9 billion of shares.

In 2012, Access Industries made €100 million investment in Deezer, the music streaming service.

In 2014, Access acquired Perform Group for £702 million. Its rivals included Germany's Sportsman Media Group and IMG of the U.S.

In 2016, Blavatnik launched Access Entertainment, which bought James Packer's stake in RatPac Entertainment and a 24.9% stake in Bad Wolf in 2017.

In 2017, Blatvatnik was named as possible purchaser of the publisher Time Inc. Blavatnik prepared the bid with Edgar "Ed" Bronfman Jr, the former chief executive of Warner Music. In March 2017, Bronfman and Blavatnik walked away from the deal, citing valuation issues.

In April 2018, it was reported that Blavatnik was a front runner in the bidding to purchase Britain's third oldest theatre, the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Sources reported that the bid was around £40 million. Blavatnik’s Access Entertainment finalized its purchase of the Theatre Royal Haymarket in June 2018.

Blavatnik also owns AI Film, the independent film and production company that backed Lee Daniels’ film The Butler and the summer 2015 release Mr. Holmes. He was an early investor in Rocket Internet and Beats Music, helped finance fashion designer Tory Burch, and, in 2013, paid $115 million for wireless spectrum in Norway.

Blavatnik has been the owner of DAZN Group since 2014, when Access Industries increased its stake in the company from 42.5% to 77%.

DAZN (pronounced "da zone") has been described as the "Netflix of sports". The company is part of Perform Group, a U.K. based sports media company owned by Len Blavatnik's Access Industries.

DAZN specialise in buying rights to broadcast sports including football, boxing and Formula 1 motor racing, outside of their domestic markets. The sports streaming service is available in Japan, Germany and Canada.

In May 2018, DAZN signed an eight year, $1 billion deal with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Boxing to stream fights on a new U.S. subscription service.

In June 2018, DAZN paid €600 million for domestic screening rights for Italian Serie A football matches in a three-year deal. The deal was believed to involve 2.5 billion euros ($3 billion) of payments over its three-season lifespan

In October 2018, DAZN signed the largest commercial deal in history with a single athlete when they paid Mexican boxer Saul "Canelo" Alvarez $365 million for the rights to screen 11 fights.

DAZN's last set of published results, for the year to 2019, showed a loss of more than $1.3 billion for continuing and discontinued operations. The company, which is dependent on subscriptions, saw revenue take a hit when the COVID-19 pandemic brought an abrupt halt to live sports. Shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic, DAZN was forced to tell European football leagues that it would not pay for games that had been put on hold. Chief Executive Officer Simon Denyer explained: "With revenues dropping and investment not available, we can only survive by making some hard decisions."

In late 2020, DAZN unveiled a slate of original documentary programming featuring global sporting icons such as Ronaldo and British boxer Anthony Joshua.

In February 2022, Blavatnik agreed a $4.3 billion recapitalisation of DAZN. The Financial Times reported that this would enable the company to target new revenue streams in betting.

Access Industries purchased the mobile phone technology company Acision from the IT Group Logica for £265 million in 2007. As of 2018, Access Industries owned 60% of Ice Group, Norway's third largest telecoms company.

Blavatnik is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Centre for International Business and Management at Cambridge University, a member of the board of Dean's Advisors at the Harvard Business School, a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, and a member of the academic board at Tel Aviv University.

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