Vagit Alekperov
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Vagit Yusufovich Alekperov ( az, Vahid Yusuf oğlu Ələkbərov, russian: Вагит Юсуфович Алекперов; born 1 September 1950) is a
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
Azerbaijani businessman. He was the President of the oil company
Lukoil The PJSC Lukoil Oil Company ( stylized as LUKOIL or ЛУКОЙЛ in Cyrillic script) is a Russian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Moscow, specializing in the business of extraction, production, transport, and sale of petrol ...
from 1993 until 2022. As of 16 April 2021, according to ''
Bloomberg Billionaires Index The ''Bloomberg Billionaires Index'', launched in March 2012, is a daily ranking of the world's 500 richest people based on their net worth. It draws information from "action in the stock market, economic indicators and news reports", features a ...
'' by
Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg L.P. is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan (Bloomberg), Duncan MacMi ...
, Alekperov has an estimated net worth of , making him the ninety-fourth wealthiest person in the world and the fifth in Russia. Alekperov previously owned a 36.8% stake in football club
Spartak Moscow Spartak Moscow may refer to the following teams based or formerly based in Moscow, Russia: * FC Spartak Moscow, an association football club * HC Spartak Moscow, a professional ice hockey team * Spartak GM Moscow, a semi-professional rugby club * WB ...
. Fellow former Spartak owner
Leonid Fedun Leonid Arnoldovich Fedun (russian: Леонид Арнольдович Федун; born 5 April 1956) is a Ukrainian-born Russian billionaire businessman. A close associate of Vagit Alekperov, formerly a key figure in oil company Lukoil and Rus ...
is Akelperov's close associate. Alekperov also owns superyacht builder Heesen Yachts. As part of the international governmental responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia have imposed sanctions against Alekperov.


Biography

Alekperov was born on September 1, 1950, in
Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
,
Azerbaijan SSR Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...
, one of the earliest centers of the international petroleum industry. His father, who died when Vagit was a boy, worked in the oilfields all his life and inspired Alekperov to follow in his footsteps. Alekperov's father was an Azerbaijani Muslim and his mother,
Russian Orthodox Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...
. Alekperov is religious, but does not define himself as either Muslim or Orthodox. In 1974, Alekperov graduated from the
Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute Azerbaijan State Oil and Industrial University (formerly Azerbaijan State Oil Academy) ( az, Azərbaycan Dövlət Neft və Sənaye Universiteti, Азәрбајҹан Дөвләт Нефт вә Сәнаје Университети (ADNSU)) is a ter ...
.


Western Siberia

Alekperov moved to Western
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
in 1979 and worked at ''
Surgutneftegaz Surgutneftegas ( rus, ПАО «Сургутнефтегаз», p=sʊrɡʊtnʲɪftʲɪˈɡas) is a Russian oil and gas company created by merging several previously state-owned companies owning large oil and gas reserves in Western Siberia. The ...
'' between 1979 and 1985, earning his reputation as an industry expert. He was ascending positions and by 1985 became first deputy general director of Bashneft production company. In 1987, he became general director of the newly created production company ''Kogalymneftegaz''.


Moscow

In 1990, Alekperov was appointed deputy minister of the Oil and Gas Industry of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and became the youngest deputy energy minister in Soviet history. At that time, Alekperov promoted the establishment of vertically integrated state-owned energy companies, which would bring together the wide range of organizations in the energy sector that were, at the time, reporting to different Soviet bureaucratic institutions. Just at this time Western oil companies began to actively look for partners in Russia. During a visit to British Petroleum facilities in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
in 1990 Alekperov personally headed the Russian delegation at the negotiations. Rondo Fehlberg, an executive at BP, told
NY Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
that Alekperov took control of the agenda during that 1990 trip, sternly asking the BP executives to explain how a modern oil company should be set up.


LUKoil

In April 1993, Langepas-Uray-Kogalymneft became the joint-stock company LUKOIL, and Alekperov became its president and chairman of the board. By 2002 Alekperov owned 10.4% of the company. In 2000, Alekperov resigned as head of the board of directors of Lukoil, but retained his position as president of the company. In May 2008, Alekperov bought 11.13 million shares (1.3%) in Lukoil, thereby increasing his stake to 20.4% and becoming the company's largest shareholder. ''LUKoil'' was the first Russian company to acquire an American company. In November 2000, ''LUKoil'' acquired Getty Petroleum Marketing and its 1,300 gas stations in the United States Like many other
Russian oligarch Russian oligarchs (Russian language, Russian: олигархи, Romanization of Russian, romanized: ''oligarkhi'') are business oligarchs of the Post-Soviet states, former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Priv ...
s, Alekperov has also moved into banking and media. In May 2006 Alekperov was one of the two main owners of
IFD Kapital Group IFD Kapital Group, earlier also called IFD Capital Financial Group, is a Russian financial holding company founded in 2003 from LUKoil non-oil assets, based in Moscow. With assets exceeding US$14.7 billion and total shareholders’ funds of 7.5 bil ...
. In 2018, Alekperov first said in an interview that he was looking for a successor to his position, a staff reshuffle, he said, could take place at the company in 2023. Alekperov is on the 2017 list of Russian "oligarchs" named in the
CAATSA The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is a United States federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill was passed by the Senate on July 27, 2017, 98–2, after it passed the House 419 ...
unclassified report to the
U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
.


International sanctions

In April 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Alekperov was sanctioned by Australia and the United Kingdom. On 21 April, Lukoil issued a statement saying that Alekperov had stepped down and resigned from the board of directors after 29 years. In May 2022, Canada also imposed sanctions on Alekperov.


Personal life

Alekperov is married to Larisa Victorovna Alekperova and has a son Yusuf born in 1990. Alekperov's hobby is
numismatics Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...
. The exact composition of his collection is unknown, but according to some reports, it is one of the three largest private collections in Russia. According to Forbes, Alekperov's private Museum of Numismatics has more than 700 coins on display, which is about a quarter of the entire collection. It consists mainly of gold coins, from antiquity to modern Russia, some silver coins, as well as a few platinum coins of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
.


Philanthropy

In 2007 Alekperov founded The Foundation "Our Future" to promote social entrepreneurship in Russia. Alekperov has repeatedly stated publicly and has confirmed that, according to his will, his stake in Lukoil (over 20% of the company) will be transferred to a specially created charitable foundation. In 2020 coronavirus pandemic, Lukoil has donated more than RUB 652 million in 22 Russian regions and almost $900 000 dollars in its operation countries abroad. Alekperov also donated RUB 50 million of personal finances to fight coronavirus in the Republic of Komi.


Awards and honorary titles

Alekperov was the first Russian citizen who received the
Woodrow Wilson Award Woodrow Wilson Awards are given out in multiple countries each year by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution to individuals in both the public sphere and business who have shown an outstanding commitm ...
. He was honored in 2005 for achievements in corporate citizenship. On 31 August 2020, ahead of Vagit Alekperov's 70th jubilee,
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
i President
Ilham Aliyev Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev ( az, İlham Heydər oğlu Əliyev, ; born 24 December 1961) is the fourth president of Azerbaijan, serving in the post since 31 October 2003. The son and second child of the former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, ...
awarded him with the "Dostlug" Order for his special services rendered to the development of mutual relations between Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation. Vagit Alekperov is also a full member of the
Russian Academy of Natural Sciences The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences ( Russian: Российская академия естественных наук) is a Russian non-governmental organization founded on August 31 1990 in Moscow in the former Soviet Union, following a de ...
.


See also

*
List of Azerbaijanis This is a list of notable Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijani Turks, or Azeris ( az, Azərbaycanlılar آذربایجانلیلار, Azərilər آذری لر) are a Turkic people, mostly living throughout Caucasus, northern Iran and easte ...
*
List of Russian billionaires This is a ranking list of Russian billionaires. The following is based on the annual estimated wealth and assets assessment compiled and published by American business magazine ''Forbes''. The wealth of 83 people exceeds $ 1 billion. Methodolog ...


References


External links


Biography of Vagit Alekperov


* ttp://raionraider.wordpress.com/ Business Russia {{DEFAULTSORT:Alekperov, Vagit 1950 births Azerbaijani emigrants to Russia Soviet engineers Living people Businesspeople from Baku Russian billionaires Russian businesspeople in the oil industry Lukoil Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University alumni 20th-century Russian businesspeople Engineers from Baku Azerbaijani billionaires Russian oligarchs