Gennady Timchenko

Early life

Timchenko was born in Leninakan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union (now Gyumri, Armenia), in 1952. His father was in the Soviet military and served in the Second World War. He lived for six years of his childhood (from 1959 to 1965) in the German Democratic Republic (learning to speak German) and in the Ukrainian SSR. In 1976, he graduated from the Mechanical Institute of Saint Petersburg, then named Leningrad, as an electrical engineer, according to a 2008 interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The fortune

According to Forbes magazine, Timchenko is one of the wealthiest people in Russia and the world:

According to the Russian publication RBC, in 2012 Timchenko's worth was estimated at $24.61bn. In addition to business assets, Timchenko, according to media reports, also owns a property in Geneva, Switzerland, which consists of just over 1 ha of land, an internal area of 341m². According to the Land Registry Office of Geneva, the purchase price of the property was SFR 8.4m (at the time of purchase in 2001 – about US$11m). He purchased the yacht Lena for $18 million in 2009. His income, according to the Finnish tax authorities, increased tenfold from 1999 to 2001. In 2001, he declared an income of EUR 4.9m. Because of his high taxes, Timchenko moved to Switzerland in 2002. In June 2022, Forbes estimated his net worth at $23.1 billion, making him the 64th richest individual in the world.

In 1998, Timchenko co-founded the Yawara-Neva Judo Club. In 2007, Timchenko and the company Surgutex founded the Kluch charitable foundation, which develops professional foster homes in Leningrad, Tambov and Ryazan regions. In 2008, Gennady and Elena Timchenko founded the Neva Foundation in Geneva, in order to promote and finance cultural projects in Switzerland and Russia. The foundation has focused on lyrical art and a partnership with the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Renowned Saint Petersburg Philharmonic conductor Yuri Temirkanov has been a trustee. In 2010, Gennady and Elena Timchenko created the Ladoga Foundation. The main activity of the fund has been providing help for the elderly, as well as the restoration of spiritual and cultural heritage monuments, support for cultural projects and project support in the field of modern medical technology. In September 2013, the Ladoga Foundation was renamed to the Elena and Gennady Timchenko Foundation (or just Timchenko Foundation for short), consolidating all their charitable activities. In 2011, Timchenko was elected Chairman of the Economic Council of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce (CCIFR). The same year, he was also appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors and President of SKA Saint Petersburg, the leading ice hockey team. In 2012, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Continental Hockey League (KHL). He serves on the board of trustees of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society. In 2020 Timchenko donated 2,9 billion rubles to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Career

In 1977, Timchenko began to work as an engineer for the Izhorsky plant near Saint Petersburg; the plant specialized in building power generators. The state-owned company then moved him to their trade department. From 1982 to 1988, he worked as a senior engineer with the Ministry of Foreign Trade. In 1988 when Russia started to liberalize its economy, he was promoted to Deputy Director of state-owned oil company Kirishineftekhimexport, which was created in 1987 and based at the Kirishi refinery, one of the three largest refineries in the RSFSR. In 1991, Timchenko decided to leave Russia and was hired by a Finland-based company, Urals Finland Oy, specializing in importing Russian oil to Europe. He became a Finnish citizen. While Anatoly Sobchak was in exile, Timchenko was the link between Sobchak and Vladimir Putin. In 1995, Urals Finland Oy was renamed International Petroleum Products Oy (IPP); Timchenko then became deputy and later CEO of IPP OY. In 1997, he co-founded the global commodity trading company Gunvor with Swedish businessman Torbjörn Törnqvist. Timchenko sold his stake to Törnqvist in March 2014, a day before the U.S. sanctions began. In 2007, Timchenko founded the Volga Group (Volga Resources Group) private investment fund. Volga group holds his Russian and international assets in the energy, transport, infrastructure, financial services and consumer sectors.

Sanctions & controversy

In March 2014, following the Crimean status referendum, the U.S. Treasury put Timchenko on the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN), a list of individuals sanctioned as "members of the Russian leadership's inner circle." The sanctions freeze any assets he holds in the United States and ban him from entering the U.S. Timchenko is on the list of Russian "oligarchs" named in the CAATSA unclassified report. On 22 February 2022, the UK government announced sanctions on Timchenko after Russia recognised the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics and deployed troops to the republics. On 28 February 2022, in relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union blacklisted Timchenko and had all his assets frozen. He was sanctioned by Canada under the Special Economic Measures Act (S.C. 1992, c. 17) in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine for Grave Breach of International Peace and Security. On March 4, 2022 the Italian police seized his yacht Lena in the port city of Sanremo. The yacht was also placed on a United States sanctions list; his wife and daughter are also named to the sanctions list.

Personal life

Timchenko is married to Elena. They have five children. As of March 2014, Timchenko lives in Moscow while his family resides in Switzerland. His daughter Ksenia is married to Gleb Frank, son of Putin's former transport minister Sergey Frank. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Timchenko said that in 1999 he gave up Russian citizenship and became a Finnish citizen. In 2004, the Helsingin Sanomat wrote that he acquired Finnish citizenship, and that he lived in Geneva at that time. In an October 2012 interview with the Russian edition of Forbes, Timchenko said that he had both Russian and Finnish citizenships. In August 2014, Timchenko said in an interview with ITAR-TASS that he needed Finnish citizenship to travel in the 1990s, when it was harder to travel on a Russian passport, and that he never concealed having two passports. He said over the past fourteen years, he had been paying taxes in Switzerland and prior to that, in Finland. "I scrupulously transfer to Russia the monies I owe to the Russian budget. In theory, I could have cut down the transfers citing the rule on inadmissibility of dual taxation but I never did this–I realized the proceeds that my monies were going off in wages to Russian doctors, teachers, and the military while I was not going to go bankrupt under any circumstances. I wouldn't get poor if I shared the budget with others." The US Department of Treasury announcement of individuals under sanctions due to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation lists him as a citizen of Russia, Finland, and Armenia.