Biography
Famous financier, media tycoon and billionaire. And also a person who was part of Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle along with other famous people - Valentin Yumashev, Roman Abramovich and Tatyana Dyachenko. He was called Boris Berezovsky's confidant and the eminence grise of Russian business, the smartest of the rich and the richest of the smart. And this is all about him, Alexander Mamut - a legendary man.
Alexander Leonidovich Mamut is a native Muscovite. The businessman was born into an intelligent Jewish family in January 1960. Parents are professional lawyers. Father Leonid Solomonovich Mamut, Doctor of Law and Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, is known for being the drafter of the new Constitution of Russia. Mom Tsitsiliya Lyudvigovna is a successful lawyer, also acted as the head of the family and the center of strategic decision-making.
Entrepreneur Alexander Mamut
At first, the Mamutov family lived in a communal apartment on Taganka. There was enough space for everyone in one room, where the grandmother lived with two generations. Then living conditions improved, and the family moved to a Stalinist house on Semenovskaya.
As a child, Alexander loved reading and communication. Mamut gave preference to humanitarian subjects. He graduated from a prestigious metropolitan school, where he studied English in depth.
Alexander Mamut
The son followed in the footsteps of his parents and also chose law. Having received a school certificate, Alexander Mamut entered Moscow State University and in 1982 became a student at the Faculty of Law.
Brief biography of Alexander Mamut
Alexander Leonidovich Mamut was born on January 29, 1960 in an intelligent Jewish family. Both parents were involved in the field of jurisprudence and law.
Father - Mamut Leonid Solomonovich (06/09/1929 - 05/15/2015) - Honored Lawyer of Russia, who defended his doctoral dissertation in his field. He enthusiastically studied the Theory of State and Law, as well as political science. He directly took part in the creation of the new Constitution of the Russian Federation. He had a fairly soft and balanced character.
Mother - Mamut Cecilia Lyudvigovna - was a practicing lawyer, led several sensational cases, including the “cotton” case. She had a strong character, as Alexander himself and people close to the family say, it was she who made all the important decisions and was involved in raising her son.
The future financier graduated from high school with an emphasis on studying English, which at that time was a sign of a certain wealth and level of family. Although, as the entrepreneur himself says, he and his parents lived quite modestly, and most of his childhood was spent in one room in a communal apartment, the family got their own home later. The boy’s main interest in those days was reading; a large family library contributed to this hobby.
“If we talk about childhood inclinations, I read endlessly. Nobody guided me, there was just a big library in the house, and when you have a sore throat for 10 days, without TV or the Internet, you start reading. In general, a library in the house is very important.” A. Mamut in an interview with Olga Tsipenyuk.
After graduating from school in 1977, the future businessman went to get a higher education. Being a hereditary lawyer, Alexander did not think about choosing another profession and entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. The necessary business connections began to form in his life precisely during that period, because among his fellow students there were many who later became successful politicians and entrepreneurs.
“I was doomed to choose a specialty. It was impossible, for example, to become an engineer in a family where from morning to night they only talk about legal things: my father studied the theory of state and law, the history of political doctrines, my mother was a practicing lawyer. Only a lawyer could grow up here.” A. Mamut About the choice of education in an interview with Olga Tsipenyuk.
After university, young Mamut got a job in his specialty. He held the position of legal adviser in one of the Moscow printing houses for 4 years, and then moved to work at Vnesheconombank.
The businessman started his first business only in 1990. Thirty-year-old Alexander Leonidovich organized a legal company.
The main feature of an entrepreneur has always been and remains the ability to establish connections, and as they say in his circle, it was this that led the businessman to the success that he has now.
“I’m not for the child to know all the world’s capitals, I’m for him to know how to make friends, build relationships, build a career, and be able to work.” A. Mamut About proper education.
The financier's family
Alexander Mamut was officially married twice. His first marriage to classmate Maria Gnevisheva ended in divorce.
Despite his marriage, the businessman was always passionate about another girl from school, Nadezhda Lyamina, so when they met again in 1993, the businessman did everything to ensure that their romance this time ended in a wedding.
At that time, the couple each had two children from their first spouses: Alexander had a daughter, Esther, and a son, Peter, and Nadezhda had two boys, Leonid and Dmitry. Their marriage produced a joint son, Nikolai.
But this marriage did not last so long; in 2002, the entrepreneur’s wife suffered from pneumonia and died. After her death, Alexander never married for the third time and raised Nikolai and Nadezhda’s sons himself.
“As for my children, I raise them differently, because we have less conflict, we are closer to each other than my generation and the generation of my parents. We wanted to prove something to ourselves by disproving the lives of our parents. Now we are more allies with our children, more friends, and have less conflict. The main thing I do when raising children, especially when they are little, is hugging. Because I believe that it is through this hug, through this touch, that I convey my love, my care, my care, my positive emotion. It seems to me that parents need to hug and kiss their children very often, and they will grow up to be sweet and kind people. The main thing in education is love. This means that the child can be forgiven for everything. It is very important to treat him with respect, that is, seriously, not like a child, even when he is small, to seriously share his interests, his fears and joys.” A. Mamut About raising children
Interview with Alexander Mamut in Posner's studio about education in the modern world.
Business
Having received a diploma from Moscow State University, the young lawyer began to build a career. Alexander gained his first experience in the legal industry at a printing house, where he got a job as a legal consultant. Back then, no one even knew that this young guy would soon turn into a media mogul. For 4 years, Mamut prepared and continued his studies in graduate school.
Businessman Alexander Mamut
The second place of work was Vnesheconombank. According to Alexander Leonidovich, every person is obliged to constantly move forward and develop. This life principle, adopted in early youth, turned out to be very effective. Already at the age of 30, Mamut became the founder of a legal office, which he called ALM Consulting. The abbreviation of the first three letters is the initials of the entrepreneur’s name.
Further more. The young financier created the banks Lefortovo, Imperial, the Commercial Bank Project Finance Company and a number of smaller ones.
Alexander Mamut
A few years later, the biography of Alexander Mamut received new bright pages in a variety of industries: now, in addition to the banking sector, the businessman was known in trade, telecommunications, oil and publishing.
In the first decade of the 2000s, the banker, lawyer and financier became a member of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. In close partnership with Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska, Mamut establishes a charitable Foundation for the Promotion of Science and is one of the founders of Channel Six CJSC.
Roman Abramovich and Alexander Mamut
It seems that there are fewer and fewer industries in the country in which Alexander Mamut has not declared himself. In 2005, Mamut joined the board of trustees of the Praktika theater, and a year later he opened his own restaurant, “The Most.”
In 2008, Alexander Leonidovich became the owner of the Euroset retailer. In the same year, Mamut entered the Forbes list and took a place among the richest people in the world. In a similar Russian list in 2020, the Russian oligarch is in 36th position.
Entrepreneur Alexander Mamut
Mamut’s empire continues to grow in different directions and spheres, and his fortune from a million is rapidly transforming into a billion. The businessman buys the British book chain Waterstones, acquires securities of Nomos Bank and 60% of the shares of Spar, a Dutch grocery chain.
The entrepreneur’s media empire is growing especially rapidly. Mamut received shares in the SUP companies, which bought the Live Journal blog service, Oriel Resources Plc, International Logistics Partnership and Corbina Telecom. The businessman has shares in the Atticus publishing group, the Bookbury bookstore chain, the Holiday Classic chain and cinema.
In 2014, Alexander Mamut became the CEO of the Group of Companies, which includes about 50 Rambler&Co projects. The tycoon's fortune is growing through a gold and silver mining company called Polymetal, where Mamut is the main shareholder.
In 2020, the oligarch’s fortune was estimated at $2.5 billion. Alexander Mamut took 36th place in the list of the richest businessmen in Russia compiled by Forbes magazine.
The beginning of Alexander Mamut's entrepreneurial activity
At the age of 30, the aspiring businessman founded a law office called ALM and ALM Consulting. The name consists of the entrepreneur's own initials. Then, raising the bar, he created Lefortovo Bank, Business and Cooperation (later Imperial), Commercial Bank Project Finance Company and others.
Alexander Mamut studied with future politicians and entrepreneurs. After 3 years, he became a co-owner of the Seventh Continent network. In 1998, he founded ALM-Development and also became an adviser to the head of the administration of the head of state.
At the beginning of the millennium, he was engaged in business in various fields - banking, trading, telecommunications, finance, oil, publishing. In particular, Alexander was a member of the management of MDM Bank, Sobinbank, insurance, investment, RESO-Garantiya, Troika Dialog.
Personal life
The oligarch was married twice. The businessman's first wife was former classmate Maria Gnevisheva. This marriage produced a son, Peter, and a daughter, Esther. But in 1993, Alexander Mamut’s personal life changed dramatically. He met a woman who is said to have been his first love during his school days. But then Nadezhda Lyamina chose Leonid Brezhnev’s grandson, Andrei, over Alexander.
Alexander Mamut and Nadezhda Lyamina with children
When they met again, they both had families and children. But now this was no longer an obstacle to their love. They divorced and created a strong family, in which their common son Nikolai was born. Nadezhda's sons from her first marriage, Leonid and Dmitry, were given an excellent education by their stepfather.
In 2002, Nadezhda Lyamina passed away: the woman fell ill with pneumonia and suddenly passed away. Alexander Mamut never married again, but much was written about his novels in the press.
Rumor has it that the media mogul was the reason for two broken marriages. Allegedly, for the sake of a relationship with Mamut, the daughter of the famous director Pavel Chukhrai, Anastasia, left her husband Anton Tabakov. Model Alena Akhmadullina did the same, leaving her husband Arkady Volk because of the billionaire. But Mamut never asked any of the named women to be his wife.
The entrepreneur was also credited with an affair with Polina Deripaska, the wife of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Alexander Mamut was often seen in the company of women, and evil tongues began to spread rumors about both love affairs and complex financial conspiracies between the oligarchs.
Alexander Mamut and Polina Deripaska
Sources close to Polina claimed that the woman cannot get a divorce for fear that her ex-husband will transfer millions of debts to her, but she has not loved her husband for a long time. Journalists looked at the possible romance from different angles, but soon the rumors, not supported by any developments, expectedly died down.
Alexander Mamut now
In 2020, Mamut’s business network caused fierce dissatisfaction among clients. The billionaire owns Russia's two largest cinema chains, Cinema Park and Formula Kino, as well as the Rambler.Kassa cinema ticket sales service, also one of the largest in the country.
Businessman Alexander Mamut
In 2020, after the entrepreneur bought the cinema chain, Rambler.Kassa increased prices for all screenings by 10%, which caused misunderstanding and dissatisfaction among both viewers and distributors. Moreover, the above-mentioned networks have stopped working with another major online ticketing service. At the same time, on the official websites of cinemas, the price of tickets available for online purchase was also shown with a markup.
Moreover, the rental companies were outraged not even by the markup itself, but by the fact that the service decided not to share additional earnings with rental companies. According to established practice, cinemas and film distribution companies divide profits from ticket sales in half.
Entrepreneur Alexander Mamut
The distributor, Universal Pictures International, even stated that it was no longer ready to cooperate with the cinema chain on such terms. As a result, a number of the distributor’s films were never shown in the Cinema Park and Formula Kino cinemas. These are the films “Made in America”, “The Snowman” and others. At the same time, experts agree that because of such a boycott, Universal will lose much more than the cinema chain.
At the end of January 2020, Alexander Mamut, or more precisely, owned by the oligarch’s investment company A&NN Investments, bought a building on Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. This is the building of the Pioneer cinema, which Mamut’s company had previously rented from the state for several years.
Businessman Alexander Mamut
Mamut acquired the property precisely in order to obtain the right to lease the building of a cinema that almost closed in 2008. The lease term was set until 2020, and in 2020 it was extended until 2026.
Moreover, the purchase, which transferred the entire ownership of the Pioneer cinema to Alexander Mamut, took place less than a week after the premiere of the scandalous film The Death of Stalin. The Pioneer Cinema became the only cinema in Russia where, despite the film being banned and its distribution certificate being revoked, screenings of The Death of Stalin were held. The cinema showed the film for two days and canceled the screenings only when the Ministry of Culture directly promised sanctions to Pioneer.
Mamut, Alexander Leonidovich
Born on January 29, 1960 in Moscow. His father, Leonid Mamut, is a Soviet and Russian lawyer, was an employee of the Institute of State and Law of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1993 participated in the development of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Mother - Cicily Mamut, lawyer.
In 1982, Alexander Mamut graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov.
After university, he worked as an assigned legal consultant in a printing house. In 1990 he created a legal entity. In 1991, he became one of the founders of the Business and Cooperation Bank, which was soon renamed the Imperial Bank (it ceased operations in 1999). 1993-1998 was Chairman of the Board of the Project Finance Company bank (ceased work in 2005). Also in 1993, he became one of the founders and shareholders of the Seventh Continent retail chain. In 1998, he was an adviser on economic issues in the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, in 1999 - an adviser to the head of the administration, Alexander Voloshin (both positions were held by Alexander Mamut on a voluntary basis). In 1999-2002 was chairman of the board of directors of MDM Bank. In 2000, he was elected to the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. In this capacity, he was a member of the Entrepreneurship Council under the government of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. From 2002 to 2005 - Chairman of the Board of Directors of the investment company. In 2006, Alexander Mamut began investing in Internet assets, co-founding the SUP company with American businessman Andrew Paulson, which in 2007 bought the popular blogging service LiveJournal. Subsequently he became the sole owner of SUP. In 2013, this company was merged with the Afisha-Rambler group. Since 2014, the formed media holding was named Rambler&Co (now Rambler Group), Alexander Mamut received the post of general director and chairman of the board of directors. After 46.5% of Rambler shares were sold to Sberbank in August 2020, Mamut heads the board of directors of the holding on a rotational basis (alternately with Sberbank representative Lev Khasis). Mamut owns 46.5% in Rambler Group. In addition to the portal of the same name and LiveJournal, the holding includes the popular news resources lenta.ru and gazeta.ru, the RNS news agency, the Afisha online service, etc. In 2009, Alexander Mamut founded the Strelka Institute of Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow. , now heads its board of trustees. Consulting bureau at Strelka in the 2010s. has created a number of implemented improvement projects for Russian cities, including Moscow (the “My Street” project). Since 2011, the institute and the bureau have completed work on more than 10 government contracts totaling more than 5.5 billion rubles. In 2020, for $250 million, Alexander Mamut bought the Cinema Park and Formula Kino cinema chains from Suleiman Kerimov and Mikhail Fridman, and in 2020, through the Rambler Group, he became the owner of the Okko online cinema. Thus, he created the largest chain of cinemas in Russia. He also owns the Moscow cinema "Pioneer". In addition to these assets, Alexander Mamut owns 9.1% of shares in (the main owner is Vitaly Nesis), which is engaged in the extraction of gold and precious metals in Russia and Kazakhstan (second place in production in the Russian Federation). He is also the owner of the Azbuka-Atticus publishing group, one of the largest in Russia, specializing in the publication of translated literature. Over the years, he owned stakes in the following (insurance), group (development), Euroset (trade of cell phones), and developed the Dutch retail chain Spar in Russia. The main part of the assets is owned through the Cyprus company A&NN Investments.
Alexander Mamut is among the world's billionaires according to the American magazine Forbes. He first entered the ranking in 2008 with a fortune of $1.2 billion. In 2020, his fortune was estimated by the magazine at $2.5 billion (42nd place in Russia, 916th in the world).
Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters (2018).
Three children. He also raised two children of his ex-wife Nadezhda Lyamina (died in 2002) from her first marriage - Leonid and Dmitry Brezhnev (great-grandchildren of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev).
Condition assessment
As you know, in addition to banks, most of an entrepreneur’s assets are directly related to media, culture and art.
Alexander Mamut is one of the richest businessmen in Russia
The cinema chain, owned by Alexander Mamut, owns about 600 screens, which is 18% of the total number of screens in the country, and an average of 20% of the box office of films. In addition, the billionaire owns a large share of the Russian book business: the Atticus publishing group, which has brought together under its leadership the publishing houses Machaon, Kolibri and Inostranka, as well as the bookstore chain Bookbury and Azbuka.
In 2020, the entrepreneur’s fortune was again estimated at $2.5 billion, but this time Mamut went down a couple of lines in the Forbes ranking of the richest businessmen in Russia and settled in 40th place.
