Victor Pinchuk is known as a Ukrainian billionaire and philanthropist. After Viktor Kuchma resigned as president of the country, Pinchuk moved away from political affairs and went into business, placing special emphasis on charity and image projects.
(Read more about him in the article Victor Pinchuk: the richest son-in-law in Ukraine)
He is the founder of the contemporary art gallery “Pinchuk Art Center” and a large charitable foundation. He organizes annual YES forums, which bring together politicians from Ukraine and around the world. Thanks to these initiatives, the Pinchuk family is known throughout the world.
And one more juicy detail. Pinchuk has extensive connections among US Democrats. We can say that they were his political cover at the highest level. However, Hillary Clinton lost the election to Republican Donald Trump. Time will tell what this means for Pinchuk’s future. But change is definitely coming.
Biography
He founded his first large company, Interpipe, in 1990, as a young scientist in the metallurgical industry. The business was based on the resale of pipes, Russian and Turkmen gas. Later, after the deterioration of relations with the Russian side, Pinchuk’s company established a full cycle of pipe production in Ukraine. The first million was earned in 1992.
In 1998, Pinchuk was first elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the Dnipropetrovsk majority district. Year was a member of the faction of the People’s Democratic Party, whose prominent representatives were Anatoly Matvienko, Valery Pustovoitenko, Anatoly Kinakh and Roman Bessmertny.
Against the backdrop of a split in this political force, he moved to the Labor Ukraine parliamentary group, and in 2000 became one of the founders of the party of the same name, headed by Sergei Tigipko and Andrei Derkach. Pinchuk was called one of its largest sponsors.
At the same time, he was an adviser to President Leonid Kuchma. In 2002, Pinchuk officially registered his marriage with his daughter Elena. Then he was again elected as a people’s deputy.
During the 2004 presidential elections, Pinchuk publicly declared his support for Viktor Yanukovych. After the Orange Revolution, the billionaire ended his political career and devoted all his attention to business and charity. In 2006, he founded his own charitable foundation and contemporary art gallery, Pinchuk Art Centre.
His charitable foundation donated $125 million for various purposes, according to the press service.
According to the billionaire himself, during the Revolution of Dignity, his people supplied medicine to the Maidan to help the wounded.
Business and fortune
In 2004, Krivorozhstal became an open joint-stock company, and at the same time its first privatization was announced. The Investment and Metallurgical Union (IMS) consortium won the competition, paying $803 million for the plant, although there were offers with a higher price. The owners of IMS were the SCM companies of Rinat Akhmetov and Interpipe of Victor Pinchuk. At the same time, the conditions of the auction were specified specifically for this consortium, and other (foreign) applicants were simply eliminated.
After the “orange” came to power, an investigation began into the sale of Krivorozhstal at a reduced price and on non-competitive principles. At that time, the head of the State Property Fund, Mikhail Chechetov, stated in his testimony that President Leonid Kuchma (Pinchuk’s father-in-law) personally instructed him to hold the competition on “preferential terms,” ensuring the victory of the Pinchuk-Akhmetov consortium.
In the spring of 2005, the Economic Court of the city of Kyiv declared the deal illegal and decided to return 93% of the company’s shares to the ownership of the State Property Fund. IMS lost the litigation in all instances, and the government of Yulia Tymoshenko began preparing the plant for reprivatization. The asset was valued at $3-5 billion. As a result, Lakshmi Mittal’s company won the privatization competition, offering $4.8 billion for Krivorozhstal. At the same time, the State Property Fund returned to Pinchuk and Akhmetov the funds spent on privatization in 2004- m.
The following year, a court decision declared Pinchuk’s privatization of the Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant illegal. He was obliged to return the controlling stake to state ownership. The desire to return ownership to the Yulia Tymoshenko government was actively supported by Igor Kolomoisky’s Privat group, which already owned the rest of the Ukrainian ferroalloy production.
“Positional battles” for the Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant lasted two years and ended with an agreement between the Pinchuk and Kolomoisky groups on the division of ownership shares in the enterprise. The state remained outside the framework of the agreement and did not return anything, although formally the enterprise was in state ownership.
“If Mr. Chechetov (head of the State Property Fund in 2004 – R0) decided to sell or give him NFP, and Mr. Pinchuk took advantage of this, then why is he not a bona fide buyer?” Kolomoisky asked about this.
In 2007, the Interpipe group was restructured into a number of independent companies and holdings, managed through the investment and consulting group EastOne.
In the wake of the crisis in 2016, Pinchuk for the first time lost second place in the ranking of the richest Ukrainians to Igor Kolomoisky – his business lost $300 million as a result of the crisis (the first line is traditionally occupied by Rinal Akhmetov).
However, even now Pinchuk’s fortune is estimated at $1.2 billion. The oligarch’s largest assets: the Interpipe pipe and wheel company, the Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant, part of the Marganets and Ordzhonikidze Mining and Processing Plants, the Credit Dnepr Bank, the Oranta insurance company, an oil and gas producing Geo Alliance group, StarLightMedia (STB, New Channel, ICTV, M1, M2, QTV).
Contacts:
Sergei Tigipko – politician, one of the founders of the Labor Ukraine party, ran for president in 2014
Leonid Kuchma – second and third president of Ukraine, father-in-law
Vladimir Borodyansky – General Director of the STB TV channel, head of the StarLightMedia group
Elena Pinchuk – founder of the AntiAIDS Foundation, wife
Hillary Clinton – candidate for US President in the 2016 elections
Investigations involving Victor Pinchuk
UP. Battle of Washington. Lobby of Victor Pinchuk
The bottom line: Pinchuk promotes Ukrainian politicians in Washington, in particular people’s deputies from the BPP Olga Belkova and Pavel Rizanenko. Lobbying services are paid for by a billionaire.
UP. Take no prisoners: Victor Pinchuk against Igor Kolomoisky
The bottom line: Pinchuk sued Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, challenging their rights to the Krivoy Rog iron ore plant (part of which belonged and still belongs to Rinat Akhmetov). Pinchuk claimed that he bought the plant from Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov back in 2004, but never received ownership of it.
Igor Kolomoisky
As it became known much later, in 2015 the billionaires entered into a peace settlement. The details of the agreement are unknown.
All photos – UNIAN.
Realist
