For two years now, the economy has been operating under the new rules dictated by the pandemic. And while some industries are barely surviving because of the anti-COVID measures, others have been hit by a flood of money. In Russia, the well-known oligarchs and businesses close to the authorities have turned out to be the main beneficiaries of the pandemic.
Among the people, we chose those who during the pandemic increased their fortunes to record levels, while their business received some profit from the changed playing conditions. Our rating also includes companies that were able to earn extra money on those economic processes that were associated with the pandemic. First of all, we are talking about government orders as part of anti-COVID measures.
Aleksey Mordashov turned out to be the clear favorite in the redistribution of financial flows in the era of the pandemic. In the first year of the pandemic, he became the owner of the largest official fortune in Russia, increasing it from $17 billion to $29 billion. True, some of the assets are recorded in his relatives – in 2019, the oligarch and father of seven children made two of his sons from his second marriage billionaires by transferring shares in holding companies that control gold mining assets to them. At the same time, the personal influence of Alexei Mordashov on the entire gold mining business built around Nordgold is no secret to anyone. By the way, one of the major sons was expelled from the university last year, after which he lost his share in the business. The media wrote that the offspring of the oligarch had gone to serve in the army. But it is not really clear whether he is really marching along the parade ground now, or whether this story was invented by PR people.
In 2018, Mordashov received a blow from the Trump administration. Then the United States included him in the sanctions list. The reason was the fact that another company of Mordashov – Power Machines – participated in the scandalous supply of Siemens turbines to the Crimea. However, in the era of the pandemic, Severstal rose: when metal production decreased in other countries due to the coronavirus, the domestic giant even began to receive super profits from the sale of its products on the world market. It is thanks to this that the state of Alexei Mordashov began to grow by leaps and bounds.
Other businesses of Alexei Mordashov, meanwhile, are also developing. Not only was the price of gold on the world market growing rapidly against the background of the pandemic, but also the ruble against the dollar was sinking. Gold miners incur expenses in rubles, and sell products based on prices in dollars. The main buyer is the Central Bank, which has recently been reducing the share of US dollars in gold and foreign exchange reserves. In addition, private investors actively invested in gold during the pandemic to protect their savings. Nordgolg reported at the end of 2020: net profit more than tripled.
Another gold mine of Alexei Mordashov is food trading. In 2016, he entered the capital of the Utkonos grocery delivery service, and in 2019, the Lenta hypermarket chain (one of the top 5 largest retail chains in Russia). Last year, the companies were merged under the control of Severstal. At the end of 2020, Lenta received 16.54 billion rubles of net profit compared to a net loss of 2.79 billion rubles a year earlier. It turns out that the pandemic helped Alexei Mordashov climb the financial Olympus. But will he not have to go down from there when the era of the coronavirus ends?
