Yury Kovalchuk

Yury Valentinovich Kovalchuk (Russian: Ю́рий Валенти́нович Ковальчу́к; born 25 July 1951) is a Russian billionaire businessman and financier who is "reputed to be Vladimir Putin's personal banker".[1] The May 2008 issue of Russian Forbes listed him for the first time in its Golden Hundred of Russia's richest, calling him and another new entrant to the List, Gennady Timchenko, "good acquaintances of Vladimir Putin."[2] The magazine placed him at number 53 on the Russians-only list, with an estimated fortune of $1.9 billion. After sanctions imposed on Kovalchuk in 2018, this dropped to $650 million.[3]

In this Eastern Slavic name, the patronymic is Valentinovich and the family name is Kovalchuk.
Yury Kovalchuk
Born
Yury Valentinovich Kovalchuk

(1951-07-25) 25 July 1951
Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia)
OccupationChairman and largest shareholder, Rossiya Bank
Known for"Putin's personal banker"
Net worth$1.9 billion
RelativesMikhail Kovalchuk (brother)
Awards

From 1987 to 1991, he was the first deputy director of Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute. Since 2004, he has been chair of Rossiya Bank and its largest shareholder.[4][5][6]

Since the early 1990s, Kovalchuk has owned a dacha in Solovyovka in the Priozersky District of the Leningrad region, located on the eastern shore of the Komsomolskoye lake on the Karelian Isthmus near Saint Petersburg. His neighbours there are Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Yakunin, Andrei Fursenko, Sergey Fursenko, Viktor Myachin, Vladimir Smirnov and Nikolay Shamalov. Together they instituted the co-operative society Ozero (the Lake) which united their properties on 10 November 1996.[7][8][5]

His elder brother Mikhail Kovalchuk is the scientific secretary of the Council for Science and High Technologies attached to the president of the Russian Federation.

In 2015, Yury Kovalchuk's National Media Group (NMG) and US Discovery Channel joined forces to form Media Alliance of which NMG owns 80%.[9] Later that year, Kovalchuk acquired the rights to Ted Turner’s Russian assets including the Russian version of CNN, Cartoon Network and Boomerang. The reason for the sale was based on the Russian media ownership law that limits ownership of Russian media by foreigners.[10]

In 2017, Kovalchuk purchased the century-old Novy Svet vineyard in Crimea for $26.4 million in one of the first privatization deals in the region since the annexation of the region by Russia.[11]

As of January 2019, Kovalchuk and Nikolai Shamalov through their ownership of Rossiya Bank have become the most important investors in Russia's development of annexed Crimea.[12]

In 2020, the world's leading streaming entertainment service Netflix partnered with Kovalchuk's National Media Group to launch a local-language streaming service in Russia.[13]

Sanctions

Kovalchuk was one of several individuals sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department on 20 March 2014 in response to the 2014 Crimean crisis. According to the U.S. Treasury, Kovalchuk is a close advisor to President Putin and has been referred to as one of his “cashiers.”[14][15][16][17][18][19]

Kovalchuk is a known friend of Putin’ he hosted the wedding of Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova to Kirill Shamalov at his wholly owned ski resort, Igora, in 2013.[20]

References and notes
  1. "Russians make leap forward on global billionaires' list". Radio Liberty. 7 March 2008. Retrieved 10 May 2008.
  2. Kremlin-linked tycoon eyes Russia media firm-report reuters.com 23 April 2008.
  3. "Russia Loses 23 Billionaires to Economic Crisis". The Moscow Times. 16 April 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  4. Anna Shcherbakova. Interview with Mikhail Klishin, Director general of the Russia Bank. Vedomosti #35(1316), 1 March 2005. (in Russian)
  5. Pribylovsky, Vladimir (11 October 2005). "Происхождение путинской олигархии" [The Origin of Putin's Oligarchy]. AntiCompromat.ru (in Russian). Archived 22 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  6. The Russia Bank, Stockmap.spb.ru
  7. How the 1980s Explains Vladimir Putin. The Ozero group. By Fiona Hill & Clifford G. Gaddy, The Atlantic, 14 February 2013
  8. "Владимир Прибыловский, Юрий Фельштинский. Операция "Наследник". Главы из книги". www.lib.ru. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
  9. "Billionaire Kovalchuk's National Media Group to Buy Russian Distributor of CNN". The Moscow Times. 23 December 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  10. "'Putin's personal banker' Kovalchuk to buy CNN Russia as Turner moves out". Eurasian Business Briefing - Information for Investors. 24 December 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  11. "Putin Ally Targeted by U.S. Sanctions Buys Winery in Crimea". The Moscow Times. 20 December 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  12. Васильев, Андрей (Vasiliev, Andrey) (25 January 2019). "После Ротенберга хоть камни с неба. Как Крым стал прибыльным бизнесом для друзей Путина" [After Rotenberg, even stones from the sky. How Crimea became a profitable business for Putin's friends]. Insider (in Russian). Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  13. "Netflix partners with broadcaster linked to Putin ally Yury Kovalchuk". Business Day. 2 September 2020.
  14. "Executive Order - Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine". The White House - Office of the Press Secretary. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  15. "Ukraine-related Designations". www.treasury.gov. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
  16. "Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN) Human Readable Lists". www.treasury.gov. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
  17. "Treasury Sanctions Russian Officials, Members Of The Russian Leadership's Inner Circle, And An Entity For Involvement In The Situation In Ukraine". United States Treasury Department. 20 March 2014. Retrieved 20 March 2014.
  18. Shuklin, Peter (21 March 2014). "Putin's inner circle: who got in a new list of US sanctions". liga.net. Archived from the original on 7 February 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
  19. President of The United States (19 March 2016). "Ukraine EO13661" (PDF). Federal Register. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
  20. "The man who married Putin's daughter and then made a fortune". Reuters. Retrieved 22 November 2018.

See also
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