Mikhail Prokhorov

At 59 years old, Mikhail Prokhorov has this physical status:

Mikhail Prokhorov (born 3 May 1965) is a Russian billionaire, political activist, and former owner of the Brooklyn Nets.

After graduating from the Moscow Finance Institute, he spent time in the financial sector and then went on to become one of Russia's top manufacturers, holding major stakes in multinational corporations in the precious metals industry.

When he was managing Norilsk Nickel, the company became the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer.

He is the former chairman of Polyus Gold, Russia's top gold producer, and the former President of Onexim Group.

In June 2011, he resigned from both positions to enter politics. Prokhorov capped a year of high-profile political life in Russia in December 2011 with the announcement that he would run as an outsider in the 2012 Russian presidential election.

He came in third third in the poll, with a vote of 7.94 percent.

He declared the formation of the Civic Platform, the country's new political party, in June 2012.

Forbes estimates his fortune at $9.2 billion as of August 2018.

Early life

Prokhorov was born in Russia, and moved to Tamara and Dmitri Prokhorov. On the maternal front, his grandfather, Alex Belkina, and his grandmother, Anna Belkina, remained in Moscow during World War II to produce vaccines, while her daughter Tamara was relocated east to safety. His paternal grandparents, who were still wealthy peasant farmers (known as kulaks), were imprisoned as class rivals under Bolsheviks and then Stalin. After his family "lost everything," his father, one of eight children, was forced to leave one area of Siberia and begin to live in another." Irina, his older sister, has one sibling.

Dmitri Prokhorov was educated as a lawyer and was in charge of international relations for the Soviet Committee of Physical Culture and Sport. Tamara Prokhorova, a materials engineer at the Institute for Chemical Machine-Building, was a materials engineer. Dmitri Prokhorov had the opportunity to travel in other countries as part of his work. His wife worked as an engineer at a research group at the university that specialized in plastics. They died within a year of each other when they were in their late 50s, both from heart disease. Irina, Mikhail Prokhorov's brother, who "runs his philanthropic groups, an erudite literary journal, and a publishing house, "lives in a wing of his mansion west of Moscow."

He graduated from the Moscow Finance Institute in 1989. He served in a senior role at the International Bank for Economic Cooperation from 1989 to 1992. Throughout this period, he served as the head of the MFK bank (Russian: "дународна комани) (Russian: "анк") (Russian: "Uneximbank), with Alexander Khloponin, a student from college, and Vladimir Potanin, who later became his business partner, who was introduced by Khloponin in 1993. Oneksimbank is the financial twin of MFK and was previously known as the ONEKSIMbank-MFK banking group, which was also close to Andrey Vavilov.

Personal life

Prokhorov has never been married, but he has been engaged twice. He vowed to get married if the Nets had not won the NBA championship within five years, a little over a year after purchasing the Nets. He ended the promise in July 2015, saying that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had "taken his position" by marrying his fiancée in May.

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Business career

Prokhorov and Potanin collaborated with Interros, a holding company that they used in 1995 to effect the acquisition of Norilsk Nickel, one of Russia's top nickel and palladium mining and smelting firms, in 1992. Following the demise of the USSR, Prokhorov and Potanin, the latter becoming the former prime minister who oversaw privatization, Norilsk Nickel's workers were able to purchase Norilsk Nickel's shares for a fraction of their estimated market value and seize ownership of the company during largely unregulated privatization. Prokhorov's share of the company was worth US$7.5 billion when he left in 2007.

Prokhorov's first big financial success came at MFK, which later became a government depository institution. The bank acquired Soviet assets in the amount of US$300 to US$400 million. Prokhorov served as the chairman of the board from 1992 to 1993. Prokhorov, the chairman of Potanin's Onexim Bank, which in 1993 became the paying agent for Finance Ministry bonds and a servicing bank for the City of Moscow's external economic activity. Onexim Bank concentrated on major clients in international economic growth, particularly in the oil and gas, chemical, and metallurgical industries in May 1994. Onexim was the depository and payment agent for Russian Treasury obligations in 1994, and in 1995, it became the designated bank for the federal department dealing with bankrupt companies.

The Russian government needed loans to function in the 1990s. Prokhorov partnered with Potanin. The government's auctions were held for the government, in which bidders were able to loan the Russian government money. At the Norilsk Nickel and other auctions that were held, Onexim and its affiliates were the winning bidders. The loans were secured by the Russian government with blocks of shares of the newly privatized state enterprises. The government never repaid the loans and, as a result, Onexim acquired the collateral, which was the ownership of the privatized businesses.

Onexim bought Sidanko, a part of the Novolipetsk metallurgical plant, as well as the Novorossiisk marine shipping company and a significant portion of the Northwest marine shipping company. Prokhorov and Potanin purchased all of these businesses for about one-third of their estimated market value.

Prokhorov was appointed to the Board of Directors of Norilsk Nickel in April 1996 (which later became part of the state). In November 1995, Onexim Bank acquired 38% of Norilsk Nickel in a loans-for-shares auction for US$170.1 million, or less than 1% higher than the bid starting price. Norilsk used to produce 25% of the world's nickel supply at the time.

The Norilsk Nickel auction was managed by Onexim at a reservation price of US$170 million. Three bids from affiliates were accepted, all at US$170 or US$170.1 million. Rossiiski Kredit Bank paid US$355 million, more than twice the initial amount. However, Onexim disqualified Rossiiski Kredit's bid on the grounds that the bid amount outweighed Rossiiski Kredit's charter capital (the nominal value of the company's outstanding shares). Onexim was ordered to register any objections well before the auction in order to give bidders time to recover them. None of the submitted bids even approximated the market value of Norilsk Nickel, which had annual revenues of around US$400 million.

The program alleged that:

"Yes, it was rigged," Russian business reporter Yulia Latyna said about the auction of Norilsk Nickel during the interview. However, it cannot be explained in normal economic terms to an outsider, particularly an American. We had robber barons, but we now have oligarchs."

Prokhorov's announcement in December that he would run as an independent in the 2012 presidential elections brought an increase in political activity in Russia. With 7.94 percent of the vote, he came third in third place in these elections. He declared the establishment of the "Party of Civic Platform" in June 2012. In June 2011, he resigned as Chairman of Polyus Gold and President of the ONEXIM Group after being unable to enter politics.

Prokhorov decided to sell 7% of Rusal to fellow billionaire Viktor Vekselberg for $503.9 million in August 2017. Earlier this year, negotiations between the two parties had stalled, with Prokhorov gaining 3.3 percent via an accelerated bookbinding.

In October 2017, Prokhorov and Viktor Vekselberg sold 3% of Rusal's Rusal for $315 million in an accelerated bookbuilding program. Prokhorov's 0,7% acquisition of the company reduced his interest in the company to 6%.

Prokhorov, who had been selling off the majority of Norilsk's non-mining resources, decided to modernize a highly complicated mining project that needed icebreakers to transport metal across the frozen Arctic zone. Prokhorov invested in an innovative Finnish freighter that did not require icebreakers. Norilsk Nickel is headquartered in Moscow. Environmental and labor conditions are demanding, and pollution remains a problem; Prokhorov has invested heavily in pollution control; Despite these measures, the mining areas in the mining areas still suffer from a high degree of pollution. He turned Norilsk's gold-mining passions into the US$8.5 billion firm Polyus Gold, Russia's top gold producer. He oversaw the purchase of Stillwater Mining, his first overseas venture, in 2003. In February 2007, he resigned as Norilsk CEO and announced his decision to separate his funds from those of long-time collaborator Vladimir Potanin. The two parties have been discussing protracted talks to divide Interros, which the pair co-owned since the 1990s, into separate interests.

Prokhorov established ONEXIM Group, a private investment fund that was worth $17 billion at the time, in May 2007. Interros' separation came as Prokhorov's interest, and the group quickly updated its investment profile as the company emerged. Prokhorov sold his 25% plus two shares interest in Norilsk Nickel to United Company RUSAL, another mining conglomerate controlled by his fellow billionaire Oleg Deripaska, in exchange for more Rusal stock, approximately US$5 billion in cash, and additional payment obligations of US$2 billion. The agreement has been characterized as a major success for Prokhorov, just three months after an oil price plunge, the value of many Russian companies, including Norilsk, has been halved. He was one of the few businessmen to have come out in time. However, his fortune has been affected by his remaining investments in several firms, including Rusal and Open Investments, and, as Rusal's remaining payment was delayed, it has since been fully paid.

ONEXIM Group acquired a majority stake in Renaissance Capital, a major Russian investment bank that has reportedly had liquidity problems in September 2008. ONEXIM bought a small bank, renaming it IFC (for the bank that Prokhorov had operated in the early 1990s). One of ONEXIM Group's divisions focuses on the growth of nanotechnology investment in high-tech industries such as white LEDs. One of the key areas of growth is the manufacture of materials with ultra-tiny structures used in energy generation and medicine. OneXIM acquired Optogan in 2008 as part of that mission.

In June 2007, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov declared the establishment of the Government Council for Nanotechnology to oversee nanotechnology research in the region. Prokhorov was one of 15 people elected to the council, which was to be chaired by then-First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.

RBC Information Systems' shareholders agreed to sell an additional 51% stake for US$80 million in July 2009, half of which went to pay off debts. In 2010, the agreement was not concluded. Prokhorov has business interests in mining and metallurgy (Polyus Gold, Intergeo, a Rusal company), financial services (IFC-Bank, Soglassye insurance company, half of Renaissance Capital), utilities (stake in Quadra), nanotechnology, and media (JV). (Open Investments) specializes in real estate and real estate construction.

Onexim sold its 20% interest in Uralkrali in 2016 and is considering selling off funds from United Co. Rusal, Opin PJSC, and Quadra.

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