79 Facts About Oleg Deripaska

Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska is a Russian billionaire and an industrialist.

Oleg Deripaska is the founder of Basic Element, one of Russia's largest industrial groups, and Volnoe Delo, Russia's largest charitable foundation.

Oleg Deripaska was the president of En+ Group, a Russian energy company, and headed United Company Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world, until he quit both roles in 2018.

Oleg Deripaska has been characterized as a victor in the "aluminium wars" in Russia during the 1990s, which were frequently violent conflicts between businesspeople to obtain state-owned assets.

In 2000, Oleg Deripaska founded Rusal, the result of a partnership between Sibirsky Aluminium and Roman Abramovich's Millhouse Capital.

Oleg Deripaska bought himself Cypriot citizenship in 2017.

Oleg Deripaska was placed under US sanctions in 2018 for reasons relating to the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Oleg Deripaska was one of seven oligarchs sanctioned by the British government over the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, including asset freezes and travel bans.

Oleg Deripaska was born in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Soviet Russia and grew up in Ust-Labinsk, Krasnodar Krai.

Oleg Deripaska grew up on the family's small farm, where from the age of 5 or 6, he learned how to live off the land from his grandparents, who primarily raised him after his widowed mother, an engineer, had to leave to find work.

In 1993, Oleg Deripaska graduated with honors in physics from Moscow State University; however, the collapse of the Soviet Union greatly reduced academic funding, making it impossible for him to continue his studies as a theoretical physicist.

At the age of 25, teaming up with fellow physicists, engineers and rocket scientists, Oleg Deripaska set up his first metal trading company, VTK.

Oleg Deripaska adopted a systematic, scientific approach to commodity trading.

Oleg Deripaska undertook export arbitrage, buying metal at low Russian prices and selling it abroad at significantly higher international market prices.

Oleg Deripaska traded primarily through the Baltic state of Estonia, as the Russian system of export licenses was in disarray.

Oleg Deripaska used nearly all his arbitrage and trading profits to acquire his initial package of shares in the Sayanogorsk aluminum smelter in Southern Siberia.

In 1994, Oleg Deripaska became director general of the plant at the age of 26.

Beyond metals, which remain at the core of his diversified industrial holding, Oleg Deripaska has acquired stakes in a wide range of companies in various sectors, including energy, manufacturing, commercial vehicles, auto components, financial and insurance services, leasing businesses, construction, aviation, and agriculture.

Oleg Deripaska established a transport company to run airports in the Krasnodar region, including Sochi and Krasnodar.

Oleg Deripaska was named businessman of the year in 1999,2006, and 2007 by Vedomosti, a Russian business daily.

In July 2006, whilst Oleg Deripaska was involved in a bid to buy the Daimler Chrysler Group, it was reported that the United States canceled his entry visa; the unnamed official declined to give a reason for the revoking of the visa.

The Wall Street Journal reported that it could have been because Oleg Deripaska has been accused of having links to organized crime in Russia and cited as their sources two unnamed US law enforcement officials.

Oleg Deripaska had received a multiple-entry visa in 2005; a US Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman refused to comment.

In 2009, Oleg Deripaska was again allowed entry and visited the United States twice.

The Wall Street Journal reported that according to two unnamed FBI administration officials, Oleg Deripaska met with agents regarding a continuing criminal probe, the details of which were not known or reported.

The aluminum company that Oleg Deripaska headed, United Company RUSAL, was in preparations for an initial public offering.

Oleg Deripaska has repeatedly denied a connection to any organized crime and said business rivals have caused the visa to be revoked by smearing him.

When interviewed by the BBC in July 2009, Oleg Deripaska said that the authorities in the United States had been attempting to blackmail him by revoking his visa and thus affecting possible investors in a negative way and thereby hoping to push Oleg Deripaska into cooperating with them.

In 2015, Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, accusing the bank of using insider information to short sell Oleg Deripaska's $1.5 billion investment in shares of Canadian-based Magna International in 2008.

In May 2007, Magna International chairman Frank Stronach announced that Oleg Deripaska was becoming a strategic partner in Magna.

Oleg Deripaska claimed that Morgan Stanley abused its duties and engaged in unlawful insider trading that resulted in significant financial damage to Veleron, estimated at $15 million to $25 million.

Oleg Deripaska is the founder of Basic Element, a diversified investment group established in 1997 which has been managing investments in the following sectors: energy, metals and mining, machinery, financial services, agriculture, construction, and aviation.

In parallel, Oleg Deripaska invested significantly in the operational improvement of smelters inside Russia.

Oleg Deripaska undertook large-scale modernization projects at a number of its facilities, including the Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk aluminum smelters.

Oleg Deripaska agreed on a pre-export finance mechanism with international lenders worth $1.7 billion for debt refinancing.

In 2013, Oleg Deripaska was awarded the "Aluminium Industry Ambassador Award" in the Metal Bulletin Awards for Excellence for his "great influence within the global aluminium industry and the wider market".

Oleg Deripaska stepped down from RUSAL in May 2018 the day after seven board members and the chief executive resigned.

On 3 May 2007, Justice Langley ruled that Oleg Deripaska had not been properly served, and that the court had no jurisdiction to try the claim as Oleg Deripaska did not live in England or Wales.

Oleg Deripaska denied that Cherney was owed any stake in RUSAL, and asserted payments made to Cherney had been for unavoidable "protection" at a time when violence was sweeping the region and posed an existential threat to any profitable business in the country.

Russian Machines corporation was established in 2005 and unites Oleg Deripaska's machine building assets.

In September 2017, Oleg Deripaska entered into a joint venture through his Russian Machines with AGCO called AGCO-RM SPIC project.

In 2005, GAZ Group was established by combining Oleg Deripaska's machine building assets.

Oleg Deripaska is a leading insurer of complex risks such as insurance for ship owners, ship hull insurance, insurance against aviation and space-related risks, and insurance of transportation companies.

In 2011, Oleg Deripaska established Kuban Agroholding, a 75,000-hectare agribusiness in the Krasnodar region.

Oleg Deripaska has gained significant media attention for its corn-seeding program, deploying several dozen corn brands selected by its genetic specialists.

In 2004, Oleg Deripaska was appointed by the President of Russia to represent the country in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council.

Oleg Deripaska has been Chairman of ABAC Russia since 2007.

Oleg Deripaska is the vice president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, chairman of the executive board of the Russian national committee of the International Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Council, an agency of the Russian government.

Oleg Deripaska has been a permanent participant at World Economic Forum sessions since 2007, when RUSAL became a WEF strategic partner.

Oleg Deripaska sits on the board of trustees of the Bolshoi Theatre, and has financed ballet performances like Flames of Paris, La Sylphide, and Paquita as well as operas like The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya, Carmen, and Wozzeck.

In 1998, Oleg Deripaska established a charitable foundation in Russia, Volnoe Delo.

Oleg Deripaska is a member of the International Council at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Oleg Deripaska sits on the board of trustees of the School of Business Administration, the School of Public Administration, and the School of Economics at Moscow State University as well as the School of Business Administration at St Petersburg State University.

Oleg Deripaska is a co-founder of the National Science Support Foundation and the National Medicine Fund.

In February 2014, Oleg Deripaska financed the construction of makeshift kennels to house stray dogs that had been abandoned by construction workers after completing work on the Sochi Olympic Village.

In October 2015 Oleg Deripaska called for governments not to agree to the Paris climate accords, arguing that countries like India and China needed to contribute more to avoid competition problems.

Oleg Deripaska is known for his close ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Oleg Deripaska forced Deripaska to sign a contract promising to pay nearly $1 million in unpaid wages.

In February 2022 Oleg Deripaska said that the war in Ukraine would bring 200 years of damnation to Russia.

Oleg Deripaska is a friend of Nathaniel Rothschild, a major investor in both Glencore and United Company RUSAL.

On 22 March 2017, the Associated Press published a report alleging that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former presidential campaign manager, negotiated a $10 million annual contract with Oleg Deripaska to promote Russian interests in politics, business, and media coverage in Europe and the United States, starting in 2005.

On 15 May 2017, Oleg Deripaska filed a defamation and libel lawsuit against the Associated Press in US District Court in DC, arguing that the report falsely claimed that Oleg Deripaska had signed a contract with Manafort to advance the goals of the Russian government.

The lawsuit was dismissed in October 2017 on the grounds that Oleg Deripaska had not disputed "any material facts" in the story by the Associated Press.

In March 2018, fearing her own death while incarcerated in Bangkok, Anastasia Vashukevich, a Belarusian escort who claimed to have an intimate history with Oleg Deripaska, claimed to have over 16 hours of audio recordings she said could shed light on possible Russian interference in American elections.

Oleg Deripaska offered the recordings to American authorities in exchange for asylum, but was deported and arrested in a Russian airport.

Vashukevich said the recordings from August 2016 include Oleg Deripaska discussing the United States presidential election with three English-speakers who Vashukevich believed were American.

In court, Vashukevich apologized to Oleg Deripaska, and said Russian agents visited her in jail to urge her to cease public statements about him.

On 30 November 2022, Oleg Deripaska filed an appeal against the EU's decision to sanction him.

Ukraine is claiming that assets belonging to Oleg Deripaska have been moved into the name of Siegfried Wolf an Austrian citizen, who is paid by Oleg Deripaska, to avoid sanctions.

Oleg Deripaska-linked UK company Terra Services Ltd was raided in December 2018.

The statement of the United States Department of the Treasury said that Oleg Deripaska "ha[d] been accused of threatening the lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racketeering".

In May 2018, it was reporteted that Oleg Deripaska had to return three private jets owned by Credit Suisse and Raiffeisen.

In October 2018 the US Treasury announced that it had extended until 12 December a deadline for the full imposition of sanctions against Rusal and its parent company En+ Group, pending the review of the proposals presented by En+ Group to the US government that would see Oleg Deripaska reduce his stake in En+ to below 45 per cent from around 70 per cent.

In March 2019, Oleg Deripaska sued the United States, alleging that it had overstepped its legal bounds in imposing sanctions on him and made him the "latest victim" in the FBI probe into Russia's interference in US elections.

Oleg Deripaska was married to Polina Yumasheva, the daughter of Boris Yeltsin's top adviser Valentin Yumashev and stepdaughter of Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana.

In March 2018, it was reported that Oleg Deripaska had successfully purchased Cypriot citizenship in 2017 under that country's golden visa, which generates billions in revenue for the island nation.

In 2009, Oleg Deripaska's ranking fell to No 164, with Forbes stating: "[H]e may not withstand collapsing markets and heavy debts".

Oleg Deripaska's Cypriot registered company Edenfield Investments acquired the Grade II listed Hamstone House in the St George's Hill district of Weybridge, Surrey, in 2001.

Since 2006, Oleg Deripaska has owned the Haft mansion near Embassy Row in Washington, DC, through a company incorporated in Delaware.