Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Akhmetov is the seventh richest person in the world, with a net worth of an estimated $31 billion USD at the amazing age of 41. He is a Ukrainian business tycoon and President of SCM Holdings, the financial and industrial holding company headquartered in Donetsk, Ukraine. He has also lately shown some interest in politics, perhaps with an eye towards being elected to office or becoming a statesman.

Rinat Akhmetov was born September 21, 1966, in Donetsk, Ukraine. He attended and graduated Donetsk National University with a business economics degree in 1990. He was the son of a coal miner, and so is qualified as a self-made billionaire. Not much more is known at this time, as not much news about brand new business moguls, translated into English, escapes a Socialist Soviet country.

He began his career in banking, as the head of Donetsk City Bank in the early 1990's. By 1996, he had added to his resume the position of president of a football team, the FC Shakhtar of Donetsk, a title he still holds today. Under Akhmetov's management, the team has made improvements to its play and infrastructure, and Akhmetov has vowed that he will break the team into the ranks of "European glory".

Starting in the year 2000, Akhmetov founded System Capital Management (SCM), initially as a conglomerate holding company. SCM now holds interests in many industries, including mining, power generation, banking and insurance, telecommunications, media and real estate. The largest company within SCM, Metinvest, is a mining and steel business and the largest private business in the Ukraine. The second largest business within SCM is DTEK, a coal mining business which operates several power stations in the Ukraine.

Together with all of it's holdings, SCM controls businesses in the industries of coal, iron ore mining and processing, steel, general mining, power generation, banking, insurance, telecommunications, and broadcasting. Opera Hotel, Donbass Palace Hotel, Sarmat Brewing Group, and Segodnya-Multimedia Publishing Group are also part of the conglomerate. The company also co-owns Astelit, the mobile telephone network service, with Turkcell.

It is perhaps the Donbass Palace Hotel which is the showpiece of SCM's holdings. It is a five-star class hotel located in Donetsk city, and it's impressive profile is considered a landmark. The hotel's history goes back to 1938, and it was destroyed but reconstructed in the years of 1947 to 1949.

Rinat Akhmetov apparently did not climb the business ladder on his own, but rather has been aided by close ties with Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych, the twice-elected Prime Minister of the Ukraine. While there is a great deal of controversy concerning the nature of this friendship and possible allegations of corruption, the interconnected nature of big business and big politics in Soviet countries is intricate and perhaps not fathomable to the Western observer.

Akhmetov has been an outspoken supporter of improving the financial standing and general economic health of the Ukraine. In 2007, he founded the Foundation for Effective Governance, a group started with the intention of developing and implementing long-term projects and programs which encourage economic growth in Ukraine. In addition, he has recently donated $150 million to the Foundation for the Development of Ukraine, which he also founded.

Not much can be summarized of the secret to Rinat Akhmetov's success. He is the stereotypical tycoon who "came out of nowhere" and now, here he is. He appears to be a very private individual, except when he is using his public face to give speeches from a podium about his glorious vision for the economic prosperity of the Ukraine.