Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov ( born 9 September 1953 )
The life cycle 9
Important years of life
1971 9
1980 9
1989 9
1998 9
2007 9
2016 9
2025 9
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In 1971 he entered , and in 1976 he graduated from MGIMO in the specialty “international law”. His classmate was Sergei Yastrzhembsky.
He was arrested and convicted on fraud charges in Uzbek SSR in August 1980 and imprisoned for six years of an eight-year sentence…
From November 1998 to February 2000 – First Deputy Director General of OOO Gazprominvestholding.
From November 2000 to July 2001, he served as an advisor to the Chairman of the Management Board of OAO Gazprom.
From February 2000 to October 2014 – the general director of OOO Gazprominvestholding (a subsidiary of Gazprom, is engaged in the recovery of his receivables). In this post, Usmanov managed to regain control of Gazprom’s 100% stake in Severneftegazprom, which owns the largest Yuzhno-Russkoye field, controlling stakes in Zapsibgazprom and Sibur, as well as over 50% of Stroytransgaz….
In August 2006, Usmanov began to invest in media. He bought Kommersant, a newspaper formerly owned by Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The deal was finalised at US$200 million. Usmanov also made a $25 million purchase of a 50-percent stake in Russian sports TV channel 7TV in November 2006 and bought 75 percent of Russian TV music channel MUZ-TV for $300 million in June 2007.
Usmanov is currently a co-owner of the media holding company UTH, which holds 51% of Disney Russia and 100% of Muz TV and U television channels…
Usmanov moved into the football arena in August 2007 by acquiring a 14.58-percent stake in the English team Arsenal Football Club. He and his business partner Farhad Moshiri bought the stake in the club owned by former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein for £75 million. David Dein was appointed as head of their investment vehicle, Red and White Holdings, which became the largest shareholder in the club outside of members of the board of directors.
On 28 September 2007, it was announced that Red and White Holdings had increased its shareholding to 23 percent, making it the second largest shareholder in the club behind Danny Fiszman on 24 percent…
On 17 September 2007, Usmanov paid more than £20 million for an art collection owned by the late Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, days before it was to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in London….
Suppression of online criticism
On 2 September 2007, Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan referred to Alisher Usmanov’s criminal conviction, claiming that Usmanov “was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail and his pardon was the work of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov on the instructions of Uzbekistani power broker and alleged drug trafficker Gafur Rakhimov. The article was subsequently removed by Murray’s web host, allegedly under pressure from Usmanov’s legal team, London’s Schillings law firm. However, what followed was that Schillings contacted independent blogs and websites warning them to remove any references to Murray’s allegations, and any reproduction of the blog posting. UK Indymedia reported that they were one of the sites that had been issued with a take down notice on 10 September 2007 and again on 21 September. On 20 September 2007, Bloggerheads.com, the weblog of Tim Ireland, was taken down for reproducing Murray’s article, incidentally causing the loss of other blogs belonging to the MP Boris Johnson, councillor Bob Piper and Clive Summerfield – none of which themselves had reproduced the article. On 25 September 2007 Summerfield and Piper were interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live about the controversy…
In the list of 200 richest businessmen of Russia for 2016, compiled by the Russian version of Forbes magazine, Usmanov took 3rd place…
In October 2016 representatives of USM Holding reported that Alisher Usmanov ceased to be a tax resident of Russia
In 2016, Usmanov entered the top-10 ranking of the richest people in Switzerland