Mikhail Fridman

From Grokipedia

Mikhail Maratovich Fridman (born 21 April 1964) is a Russian-Israeli billionaire businessman and philanthropist, co-founder and largest shareholder of Alfa Group, a private conglomerate that operates Russia's largest non-state bank, Alfa-Bank, alongside interests in energy, retail, and telecommunications.

Born in Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, to Jewish parents, Fridman moved to Moscow in 1980 to study metallurgical engineering at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, from which he graduated with honors in 1986. During perestroika, he engaged in small-scale trading and cooperatives before co-founding Alfa Group in 1989 with partners including Petr Aven and German Khan, initially focusing on commodities and expanding into finance and oil through ventures like the TNK-BP joint enterprise with BP, which was sold to Rosneft in 2013. As of 2025, Fridman's fortune, derived primarily from banking, oil, and telecom stakes, stands at approximately $14.9 billion, positioning him as one of Russia's wealthiest individuals despite international sanctions.

In response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Fridman publicly described the conflict as a "tragedy" for both Russian and Ukrainian peoples, stating that "war can never be the answer" and urging an end to the bloodshed, while offering personal funds for Ukrainian reconstruction. Nevertheless, he was designated under Western sanctions targeting Russian economic elites perceived as Kremlin beneficiaries, leading him to relinquish roles in international holdings like LetterOne and challenge the measures legally; the EU General Court annulled his inclusion on sanctions lists in 2024 for insufficient evidence of direct support for the war, though broader restrictions persist as of 2025. Fridman, who holds dual Russian-Israeli citizenship, has also been active in philanthropy, particularly supporting Jewish education and cultural initiatives through groups like Genesis Philanthropy.

In brief

Mikhail Fridman started in the first years of Russian private business and kept building conglomerates: banking, oil, retail, telecoms. Alfa was a house with many rooms.

After the TNK-BP sale he went international with LetterOne. The later years have been lived under the shadow of geopolitics. The earlier years were a study in scale.