How the head of VTB Andrey Kostin turned out to be a lover of expensive things

Childhood and youth

The official biography of Andrei Leonidovich is scanty in details. Born in 1956 in the family of an employee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR and a teacher at the Academy of Labor. In addition to general education, he graduated from a music school where he studied violin. In 1979 he received a diploma from the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University with honors.

Published by Gabriel Belot Thursday, April 4, 2019

Andrey Kostin and Oksana Lavrentieva

The young man had a lucky opportunity to see the world, which he was quick to take advantage of. From 1982 to 1985, Kostin worked at the Consulate General of the Soviet Union in Sydney, then for 5 years he worked at the embassy in the British capital. For another 2 years, Andrei served as adviser to the European Department of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Later, at the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation, the diplomat defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences.

Appearance

Despite her busy work schedule, Nailya tries to stay in shape and eat right. Pictures on social networks show that she has a good figure.

In clothing, the journalist prefers a classic style: business suits and closed dresses, often in bright colors. One of her favorite shades is red. In the TV presenter's wardrobe you can find many things from famous brands. The girl complements all her looks with expensive accessories and hairstyles.

Nailya Asker-zade - photo

Personal life

The banker met his wife Natalya Gordeeva at the university - they were studying at the same course at Moscow State University. The couple had a son, Andrei. Kostin Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps, graduated from the Financial Academy and a special program at Deutsche Bank, worked in the bank’s London division, and by 2011 had climbed the career ladder to deputy chairman of the board.

In the summer of the same year, the only heir of the chairman of the board of VTB died in an accident while riding an ATV.

However, the yellow press writes that Andrei Leonidovich has other children. The mother of Yegor’s son is called Oksana Lavrentieva, a former model and actress who starred in videos of Russian pop stars, and now a businesswoman and socialite. According to rumors, the woman had a daughter, Alina, from her previous relationship; she was married twice more until she settled into a personal life with the writer Alexander Tsypkin in 2018.

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Andrey Kostin and Nailya Asker-zade
What connects Kostin with journalist Nailya Asker-zade is unknown. The media are satisfied with the results of the so-called investigation of the Anti-Corruption Foundation of Alexei Navalny. The opposition politician claims that the banker has transferred luxury real estate to the TV presenter, pays for her vacation on luxury yachts and provides for flights a plane “registered as a diversion” in overseas offshores.

Particularly zealous representatives of the writing fraternity saw their colleagues’ watches, bags and other accessories worth millions of rubles in the Instagram photo and concluded that it was impossible to purchase them on a journalist’s salary. Nailya only laughed in response. It is clear that Kostin did not comment on the situation.

In addition, the Internet community noticed that sites that post notes about the banker’s affair with Asker-zade are blocked. Roskomnadzor explains this by court decisions made on VTB claims to protect the honor and dignity of its top manager.

Andrey Leonidovich is interested in skiing, theater and painting, and supports the capital's Peter Fomenko Theater. The banker bought at auction and donated to the state museum in Pavlovsk a breakfast service that belonged to Empress Maria Feodorovna.

First success

At VGTRK, Asker-zade initially interviewed foreign and Russian businessmen, and also ran an economic column. In 2011, Nailya left Vedomosti due to a conflict of interest and because of rumors about her relationship with the head of VTB Bank Andrei Kostin.

In 2020, the Russia TV channel began broadcasting the program “At Working Noon,” where Nailya talked with famous entrepreneurs and officials.

Two years later, based on “Working Half-Day,” a new project “Characters with Nailya Asker-zadeh” appeared. In the modified format of the program, the girl was interviewed not in the studio of the TV channel, but in factories, mines, riding a horse, playing billiards, skating, etc. The heroes of the program were famous politicians, officials and billionaires: Ramzan Kadyrov, Alisher Usmanov, Vladimir Potanin, Dmitry Peskov and others.

Career

In 1992, Kostin left the civil service for business - together with the current owner of the Independent newspaper Alexander Lebedev, he worked at the Russian Investment and Financial Company, then at the Imperial Bank and the National Reserve Bank.

In the fall of 1996, President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree appointing Andrei as chairman of Vnesheconombank, which was responsible for servicing the USSR's debts and assets after the collapse of the Union. His candidacy was proposed by former university teacher Sergei Dubinin.

Five years later, Vnesheconombank merged with VTB. Kostin became the chairman of the board of a new financial structure, the VTB Group, and is now a member of the bank’s supervisory board. During this time, the assets of Guta Bank, Bank of Moscow and VTB 24 were merged into the company, and subsidiaries appeared in Georgia, France, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine. Every year, leasing companies, pension funds and real estate management agencies are expanding.

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Andrey Kostin and Elvira Nabiullina
VTB financially supports the Dynamo hockey club, the Kremlin Cup tennis, the United Basketball League, and is a member of the founders of the non-profit organization Rosgonki, which is responsible for the Formula 1 stage in Sochi.

In 2007, Kostin joined the board of directors of Russian Railways OJSC; in 2010, he refused re-election, wanting to fully concentrate on his work at VTB.

The banker’s political career began in the spring of 1997, when he was elected a member of the political council of the “Our Home is Russia” movement. Ten years later, he joined the supreme council of United Russia. In November 2011, Kostin was chairman of the business council of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vladivostok.

In 2014, the financier headed the business school of St. Petersburg State University. In Andrey’s care are the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters, MGIMO and Moscow State University, the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation.

The path to popularity

After graduating from college, Nailya decided to move to Moscow. At first, the girl worked as an auditor in a large industry company. Realizing that she could not achieve success, she applied for an internship at the NTV channel and later got a job as an international editor at RBC.

At the same time, the journalist began working in the financial department of Kommersant magazine, where she conducted her first interviews. At the same time, she appeared on television on the Good Morning program, where she commented on magazine articles. Her experience on television did not go unnoticed, and the girl was invited to work permanently by the VGTRK channel.

In 2010, Nailya entered the Institute for Advanced Studies of Television Workers and moved from Kommersant to the Vedomosti newspaper.

Andrey Kostin now

The Russian banking system, subject to sanctions, is going through hard times, and VTB is no exception. However, its leader remains in a fighting spirit. Since 2020, the bank’s shares have fallen in price by 40%, but Kostin was confident that the financial organization would enter 2020 with a profit of € 2.8 billion. This allows maintaining return on equity, and therefore stability in the market.

Sanctions also apply to the financier personally. In 2019, Andrey was not allowed to attend the World Financial Forum in Davos as a person included in the American SDN List. The organizers issued the invitation only after the Prime Minister threatened not to send the Russian delegation to Switzerland at all.

According to Andrey Leonidovich, the main task for VTB is the transition to a digital format of work. In this sector of the economy, new technologies are introduced faster and easier.

“We are trying to get ahead of everyone else and also break into other industries. We want to create an ecosystem within which our services will be used in transport, trade and other areas.”

How the head of VTB Andrey Kostin turned out to be a lover of expensive things

State banker Andrei Kostin, as it turns out, has big demands. He is very fond of grain - on an industrial scale, as well as salt and cement - for aesthetic consumption.

Images from the novel

The Telegram channel “Baza” gained access to the database https://www.importgenius.com/, and found there a list of gizmos that seriously interested the head of VTB Andrey Kostin. So serious that he decided to spend 140 million rubles on them.

If you trust the publication of "Baza", over the past four years the financier has imported a huge amount of furniture, finishing materials and accessories from abroad - a total of 664 items. All these items were delivered to the famous apartment in Leontyevsky Lane, building 6

.
What made this apartment famous was a kind of paradox: it was mentioned as the home address of the head of VTB, and at the same time, information about the owners of this apartment was completely absent from Rosreestr. Another mystery that haunts the authors of the article that dug up all this information is how these things could be physically delivered to one apartment, the area of ​​which is only 97 square meters. The banker ordered 37 vases made of fine ceramics (worth 4 million rubles). It is also unclear why a resident of a city apartment might need a garden umbrella from rain and sun with massive mounts (RUB 490,910). Unless, of course, the customer tried to be inspired by images from Mikhail Bulgakov’s
“The Master and Maragarita”.
There are some reasons for this assumption: for example, the order list includes a table made of white rock salt and cement ( RUB 111,046
), a ceramic wreath of shells (
RUB 46,501
), and wall tiles in the shape of fish scales (
RUB 390,567
).
Agree, these orders reek of something Wolandovian. But otherwise the purchases give the impression of simply a chaotic waste of money. Feather pillows for 2,087,448 rubles
, soap for
11,892 rubles
, and a washcloth for
8,450 rubles
speak more of the hero of 1990s jokes about the “new Russians” than of the devil’s messenger to Moscow.

State monetary monopoly

Andrei Leonidovich Kostin, in principle, does not correspond to the image of the textbook “new Russian”. They spent crazy, but their own capital. In terms of his social status, Andrei Kostin more closely resembles an “old Russian”. For example, Grigory Danilovich Rimsky

, financial director of the Variety Theater, where Woland and his retinue performed. Let us recall that in the novel Rimsky is portrayed as a rather greedy, although not stupid, person. Greed drives him crazy: he collects the ducats that Woland scatters throughout the theater into his briefcase, although he understands perfectly well that he is dealing with a dark force. It all ends with Rimsky leaving for Leningrad and asking the police to lock him in the most secure cell.

The VTB President is not yet eager to go to Leningrad, and he has other, more sophisticated methods for collecting chervonets. Andrei Kostin likes to create organizations that claim a monopoly position in the economy. So, just recently, the president (of the bank) asked another president (of Russia) to help create a United Grain Holding, which is supposed to include two grain port clusters - in Novorossiysk and Taman. In essence, this is a monopoly, since the main export flow of grain from the country goes through these ports. The author of the idea does not particularly hide the fact that its goal is to create a new national leader in the grain market, focused on consolidating assets related to the export and storage of grain, capable of “taking on the functions of the leading trader of Russian wheat.”

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Offshore basin

How the head of VTB Andrei Kostin overlooked his colleague from the Bank of Moscow Andrei Borodin

Having gained access to the export tap, VTB will be able to control prices on the domestic market. Imagine what great opportunities are revealed!

VTB has long been preparing to capture the grain market: to do this, it acquired a blocking stake (33.7%) in the Novorossiysk Bread Products Plant, one of the largest grain terminals in the Russian Federation, and a controlling stake (50% minus 1 share) in the United Grain Company. Now the only thing left to do is to buy out the share of the Ukrainian agricultural holding Kernel

in the Taman grain terminal complex, after which it will be possible to unite two grain port clusters - in Novorossiysk and Taman. After which the state should create railway and road infrastructure for Kostin’s business in the ports of Taman and Novorossiysk, and things will get better. And in a few years, we will no longer be able to distinguish the head of the state bank from a real Arab sheikh with airplanes and toilets made of real gold.