Viktor Vekselberg Net Worth & Biography

Russian businessman and entrepreneur, Viktor Vekselberg, is known to be one of the wealthiest Russian men in business as far as the last decade is concerned. He is associated with the Renova Group as its founder and president. The Renova Group is one of Russia’s largest companies with interests in telecoms, aluminum, oil, energy, and a variety of other sectors. Born and raised in the Drohobych, Mr. Vekselberg started building his empire through the trading of scrap copper from worn-out cables. He found success in his choice of work, and the rest became history. Read on for more details.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

He was born Viktor Felixovich Vekselberg on April 14, 1957, in Drohobych, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, to a Russian mother and a Ukrainian Jewish father.

In 1979, he completed a degree program at the Moscow Transportation Engineering Institute.

Professional Life: Entrepreneurial Career

After his graduation from college, Viktor worked as a research manager and engineer at a state-owned pump manufacturer.

In 1988, after restrictions on private businesses were relaxed, Viktor founded NPO Komvek, and co-founded Renova Group two years later with college classmate, Leonard Blavatnik. His first company KomVek owned 67 percent of Renova and Blavatnik’s company, and Access Industries owned the remainder. In 1996, through a merger of the Ural and Irkutsk Aluminum Plants, he co-founded the Siberian-Urals Aluminum Company (SUAL), which was later incorporated into United Company RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminum company.

Using profit made from his aluminum business, Viktor purchased a small interest in Tyumen Oil (TNK), one of the largest oil and gas companies in Russia. He later secured a controlling interest in Tyumen Oil in 1997 and was appointed to the board of directors. In 1998, he became chairman of the board and led in that post until he later integrated most of the assets in his control under the umbrella of Renova Group.

In 2003, the Renova Group, along with Leonard Blavatnik’s Access Industries and the Alfa Group (owned by Alexei Kuzmichov, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan) created a strategic partnership to jointly hold their assets in the oil sector in Ukraine and Russia, forming the AAR consortium. They also merged AAR with British Petroleum’s Russian oil assets that same year, in a 50-50 joint venture named TNK-BP. That was and still is the largest private transaction in Russian history.

In 2010, Viktor became the president of the Skolkovo Foundation, a not-for-profit organization funded by a collaboration between the Russian government and private investors, with the aim of creating an avenue for technology research in Russia.

Personal Life

Viktor Vekselberg has been married to his wife Marina for many years now, and they have two children together.

This businessman, whose mother is Christian and his father Jewish, often identifies as multi-denominational and does not attend church services or go to the synagogue. He is a longtime friend of British–American billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, who is a close associate of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He reportedly lives in Switzerland and owns the $120 million yacht Tango through offshore companies. The yacht was seized by Spain’s Civil Guard and United States federal agents in Mallorca, Spain, in April 2022.

Viktor Vekselberg Net Worth

The primary source of Viktor’s wealth is his business career where he has made numerous significant investments and built formidable partnerships over the years. He is currently one of the wealthiest people in Russia, thanks to the energy and aluminum industries where he thrived through several notable businesses that gave him enough riches to last for more generations.

The businessman and engineer, Viktor Vekselberg, is said to own a net worth of 17 billion dollars which makes him one of the biggest players in Europe. He quickly made a name for himself in the business scene once he entered it in the 1990s and found favor in the copper and aluminum smelting businesses, in addition to oil production and distribution. Mr. Vekselberg’s fortune is held by the Renova Group which he founded along with a business partner. The Renova Group is one of Russia’s largest companies with interests in telecoms, aluminum, oil, energy, and a variety of other sectors. In 2013 he sold a 12.5 percent stake in oil firm TNK-BP for $7 billion, in a deal that earned him nearly $5 billion worth of dividends. He still controls 6 percent of the United Co. Rusal firm, a business that is considered the largest aluminum producer in Russia. To round up his list of investment interests, Viktor Vekselberg also owns significant shares in Schmolz & Bickenbach, Sulzer, and Oerlikon, and also owns utility company T Plus, among countless other investments.