Childhood and youth
The man was born on March 9, 1958 in Akmolinsk, Kazakhstan, into a poor large family, but was always proud of his parents and ancestors. Mikhail is Ingush by nationality. The Gutseriev family has a legend about a grandfather who, at the age of 9, came to Georgia through the Cross Pass. He walked barefoot to study.
Gutseriev earned his first money at the age of 13. He and his friends glued postcards onto chipboard boards, coated them with varnish and sold them. This was already in Grozny, where the family moved in 1961.
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In 1975, after graduating from school, he worked as a loader for a year, and then moved to Kazakhstan and entered the evening department of the Technological Institute. During the day, the future chemical technologist worked as a roller at a garment factory, then became a workshop foreman, and in the evening he went to lectures at the institute.
After graduating from university, Gutseriev went to Grozny to look for work. Near the bus stop, he saw an arts and crafts association and went in there. He was hired. Mikhail Safarbekovich worked for days at the enterprise. In 1985, a man headed the factory, becoming the youngest general director of the USSR.
Gutseriev later graduated from the Russian State University of Oil and Gas and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
Beginning of work history
After school, at the age of 17, Mikhail Gutseriev began working. At first it was the position of a loader at a fruit and vegetable base. In 1976, he decides to go to work in the Dzhambul region, where he works at a folk arts and crafts factory as a roller. Quite quickly he becomes a master of the sewing workshop at the same enterprise. At the same time, Mikhail studies in the evenings at the Institute of Chemical Technology. In 1982, having received a diploma in the specialty "Technology of Fur and Leather", he returned to Ingushetia.
Career and business
In 1988, during the era of perestroika, Mikhail Safarbekovich founded the commercial Binbank and the Chiital joint venture, which was engaged in the production of furniture. When Dzhokhar Dudayev came to power, the entrepreneur moved to Moscow, where he founded the BIN corporation. It included industrial, trade and financial organizations.
Gutseriev’s first significant business project was the free economic zone “Ingushetia”, the essence of which was tax benefits for entrepreneurs. Ingushetia was serviced by the BIN financial corporation, owned by Mikhail Gutseriev.
The businessman was always attracted to the oil business, and the entrepreneur connected his biography with it. In 2000, he was offered to head the state government. 2 years after taking office, the corporation’s shareholders’ meeting dismissed him. Then Gutseriev founded his own oil company.
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In 2007, the businessman began having problems with law enforcement agencies. The Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs accused him of tax evasion and illegal business activities. Mikhail was forced to leave Russia for England. There he began buying up radio stations and within 3 years became a key player in the radio broadcasting segment. Today he owns “Vesna FM”, “Vostok FM”, “Finam FM”, “Moscow Speaks”, “Chanson”.
In 2010, all charges were dropped against Mikhail Gutseriev, and in 2013 he became the sole owner of the oil company.
The billionaire is fond of singing and actively collaborates with Russian pop stars. He first turned to poetry in his youth and still pays attention to his hobby. The man has been recognized more than once as the best poet of the year. Songs based on his poems are performed by Stas Mikhailov, Alexander Buinov, Laima Vaikule, Natasha Koroleva, Philip Kirkorov and others.
Gutseriev's creativity
It is generally accepted that serious businessmen are down-to-earth people who are far from creative. The personality of Mikhail Gutseriev represents a striking exception to this rule. For many years he has been writing poetry, which then turns into musical hits. They are performed by recognized masters of the Russian stage: Joseph Kobzon, Laima Vaikule, Sofia Rotaru and Stas Mikhailov, stars of popular music and Russian chanson.
Gutseriev has repeatedly become a laureate of the “Song of the Year” in the “poet” category. Songs based on his poems won the Golden Gramophone and Chanson of the Year competitions. Gutseriev wrote music for several compositions.
In 2014, director Mikhail Levitin shot a series of short films in which famous actors read poems by Gutseriev. The poetry of Mikhail Gutseriev has been published by many publishers and is popular on the Internet.
Policy
In 1995, Mikhail Gutseriev retired from business and took up parliamentary activities. He entered the State Duma from the LDPR party. The deputy coordinated the activities of a number of committees and served as deputy chairman of the faction. He has always actively participated in the settlement of the Chechen armed conflict, as well as in other issues related to the situation in the Caucasus.
The head of the LDPR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, says that he knew Gutseriev several years before the elections, and invited the businessman to the party because he knew him as an honest and principled person.
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Mikhail Gutseriev and Alexander Lukashenko
With his money, shelters, children's sports schools, dormitories, educational and medical institutions, churches were built - there are more than 30 large objects on this list.
On January 14, 2000, after being elected to the post of president of Slavneft JSC, Gutseriev refused his deputy mandate.
Gutseriev in politics
1995 - Gutseriev joins the LDPR, becoming interested in politics. He holds the position of vice-speaker and resolves issues on the territory of Chechnya. Gutseriev's political activities did not bring historical innovations.
Mikhail Gutseriev at the Russian National Music Award
“I did not seek to change the country,” said Mikhail Gutseriev. “Entering political activity is a necessary measure to save entrepreneurship.”
Mikhail helped those in need and tried to listen to everyone. He paid for the operations of seriously ill patients with his own savings.
January 14, 2002 - The end of the businessman’s political activity.
Gutseriev Mikhail and Putin
Personal life
Mikhail Gutseriev is happily married. Nothing is known about his wife; the businessman does not like to talk about his personal life. The entrepreneur has two children - a son and a daughter. Another son, Chingiz, was in a car accident in 2007, which became fatal for him.
On March 26, 2020, the billionaire married his son Said Gutseriev to Khadija Uzhakhova. What is known about a girl from an Ingush family is that she received a medical education. Khadija is not the daughter of influential people.
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Journalists dubbed the celebration “the wedding of the year.” The bride wore a French dress that weighed 25 kg. Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Elton John and other world-class celebrities performed before the guests. Mikhail Gutseriev spent more than €3 million on fees alone for the stars who performed at the wedding. As of 2020, the billionaire’s fortune was estimated at $3.7 billion.
Achievements of Mikhail Gutseriev in the 2000s
Having refused the mandate of a deputy, Gutseriev became president (JV of Russia and Belarus).
In the 2000s, he received the “Conscientious Payer” award, established by the Ministry of Taxes and Duties of the Russian Federation.
Figure 1. Image by Mikhail Gutseriev Source: website meduza.io
During his two-year work, he learns the intricacies of doing business in the oil field. The successful work of the entrepreneur was noticed by experts: the magazine “Company” named Gutseriev “Best Manager of the Year 2001.”
During the same period, the billionaire became vice-president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Laureate of a public award for significant contribution to the development of the Russian economy.
In the fall of 2002, he founded and began actively promoting it on the market. In less than 2 years, the entrepreneur made it one of the leaders in the field of petroleum products trading in the Russian Federation. In 2004, this was noted at the Russian National Olympus award. At the same time, the company received the “Company of the Year” award in a category held by the RBC Group.
More information about other leaders of the Russian oil industry can be found in the article: “The 7 largest oil companies in Russia.”
In 2003, for several months he was president of the Association of Oil and Gas Producing Enterprises Assoneft, but was forced to leave his post due to lack of time and the dynamic development of RussNeft.
In parallel with running the oil business, Mikhail acquires assets in various sectors of the economy:
- construction and real estate;
- finance and insurance.
By the mid-2000s, the businessman, members of his family and other business partners owned many enterprises: from a hotel chain to shopping centers, commercial real estate, etc. In 2005, Gutseriev received a 50% stake in Russian Coal CJSC.
Contributed to establishing business contacts with foreign partners. So, the following year he was chairman of the Russia-Algeria business council, operating under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the same period, he became the winner in the categories “Head of the Oil and Gas Industry” and “Entrepreneur of the Year”.
In 2007-2010, he fought in Russian courts on charges of organizing illegal activities and receiving income from them on a particularly large scale.
Interesting fact! The businessman conducted investigations into the case through representatives, while he was in the UK: The Investigative Committee issued a sanction for Gutseriev’s arrest in absentia back in 2007.
RussNeft was urgently sold to Oleg Deripaska for $3 billion, but in the end the billionaire achieved the dismissal of all charges and the return of control over his oil enterprise. Already in 2013, after a series of financial transactions, he became the sole owner of RussNeft. In 2020, an IPO was held: 20% of the oil company’s securities were placed on the Moscow Exchange, $501 million was raised.
In parallel with the proceedings, he continued to develop his business and participated in projects to develop oil and gas fields in the CIS countries and on the African continent.
Mikhail Gutseriev now
Now Gutseriev continues his poetic activity. The songwriter’s creative evenings are held at the best venues in the country, including the State Kremlin Palace. The entrepreneur reports about his creative successes through Instagram, where he posts photos of the performers of his songs.
The name of Mikhail Gutseriev often ends up in the press in connection with another scandal. Thus, at the end of 2020, the director of the Bolshoi Moscow Circus, Edgard Zapashny, accused the entrepreneur of excessively supporting the foreign circus Cirque du Soleil. The claim arose due to the construction by Gutseriev’s company of the Amphion concert hall in the Moscow region, the main tenant of which will be a Canadian circus troupe. In response to several scandalous videos, Mikhail Safarbekovich promised to continue the proceedings in court.
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Mikhail Gutseriev now
In the fall of 2020, a dispute broke out over a biased, in the opinion of the Russian Forbes, article that appeared on the pages of the Russian Forbes, which reported on the trillion-dollar debt of the Gutseriev family and his nephew Shishkhanov. Representatives of the Safmar group called the article corrupt. As a result, AS Rus Media filed a claim with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the Gutseriev-controlled group in connection with information discrediting the business reputation of the publishing house.
Media tycoon Mikhail Gutseriev
An entrepreneur is constantly looking for areas to apply his strength and capital. Therefore, his gaze could not help but focus on such a profitable and interesting industry as media. In 2010, Mikhail Gutseriev launched a massive attack on the radio market. In 2012, after difficult negotiations, he bought two radio stations, “Prosto Radio” and “Kind Songs,” from Alexander Lebedev. Subsequently they were transformed into “Vesna FM” and “Vostok FM”. In 2013, Gutseriev acquired 75% of Igor Krutoy’s media holding, which owned the stations Radio Dacha, Love Radio and Taxi FM.
Gutseriev left the formats of the new radio stations unchanged. In 2013, the entrepreneur bought the station “Finam FM”, and a little later - “RU.FM”, which was transformed into “Radio “Gvorit Moscow”. These acquisitions made Mikhail Safarbekovich the largest player in the radio broadcasting market. Today his Izyum holding ranks second in this industry after the Gazprom Media concern. In 2020, Gutseriev acquired the Radio Chanson station.
Awards
- Medal "For Labor Valor"
- Medal "For Labor Distinction"
- Order of Friendship (“For great contribution to the strengthening of Russian statehood, friendship and cooperation between peoples”)
- Order of Honor (“For great contribution to the development of the media industry and many years of fruitful work”)
- Title "Honored Economist of the Russian Federation"
- Medal "For Distinction in Special Operations"
- Title "Honorary Oilman"
- Title "Honorary Worker of the Fuel and Energy Complex"
