Mikhelson is the chief executive officer of Novatek, the largest non-state-owned natural gas provider in Russia. The billionaire owns about one quarter of the publicly traded company, which produces about 10% of the country's gas. He also holds a 30.6% stake in closely held petrochemical producer Sibur.
Leonid Mikhelson's net worth of $26.7B can buy ...
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The majority of Mikhelson's fortune is derived from a 25% stake in Novatek, according to the company's March 21, 2022 disclosure document. He holds most of his stake directly and through two holding companies: Russia-based Optima and Levit. Novatek is Russia's largest non-state-owned natural gas company and produces 10% of the country's gas, according to its website.
In 2010 and 2011, he bought a controlling stake in closely held petrochemical company Sibur from Gazprombank, which is affiliated with Russia's state-controlled gas producer, Gazprom. He continues to hold a 30.6% stake in the company, according to its website. It's valued using reported financial results for the 12 months to Sept. 30, 2021 and the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda of two publicly traded peer companies: LyondellBasell Industries and Saudi Basic Industries. The analysis applies a 10% discount to reflect western sanctions.
The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
Leonid Mikhelson was born in the southern Russian city of Kaspiisk in 1955. After graduating from the Kuybyshev Engineering and Construction Institute in 1977, he worked as a foreman. In 1985, he became chief engineer of Ryazantruboprovodstroy trust, a gas pipeline constructing company that was privatized in the post-Soviet government asset sales program in the early 1990s and renamed Nova. Two years later, Mikhelson was named head of the trust.
He established the investment company Novafininvest to pursue oil and gas exploration in 1994. It was the predecessor to today's Novatek, Russia's biggest non-state gas producer, second only to Gazprom in terms of production volume. The company was renamed Novatek in 2003, and Mikhelson continued as its CEO.
Novatek's management sold 17.3 percent of the company on the London Stock Exchange, raising $879 million in 2005. Mikhelson owned almost 7 percent of the business and collected more than $300 million and, a year later, state-controlled Gazprom bought 19.4 percent of Novatek from him and his partners for more than $2.3 billion.
He remains Novatek's largest shareholder, with a 25 percent stake in the company. Fellow billionaire Gennady Timchenko, who began buying Novatek shares in 2008, controls about 23%. French oil company Total owns 19.4%.
Mikhelson's Dellawood Holdings bought Sibur, Eastern Europe's biggest petrochemical producer, from Gazprombank, a bank affiliated with the natural gas company Gazprom. He bought an initial 25% stake from the bank in December 2010 and another 25% in March 2011. Cyprus-based Dellawood boosted its Sibur holding to 100% in November 2011. Dellawood was renamed Sibur Ltd., and for the first time disclosed that its shareholders also included Timchenko and former Sibur managers.
Today Mikhelson holds 30.6% and Timchenko has 14.5%. Mikhelson became chairman of Sibur's board of directors in 2011.