Arkady Rotenberg (born December 15, 1951 in Leningrad) is a Russian Jewish businessman and oligarch. Together with his brother Boris, he owns SGM-Group (Stroygazmontazh), the largest company specializing in the construction of gas pipelines and electric lines in Russia. He was included by Forbes magazine in the list of the richest people in the world in 2014, ranked 621st. Considered a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin.
What is known about the childhood years of our hero?
How did Arkady Rotenberg begin his life? His biography, especially his origin, information about his parents is a secret with seven seals. Neither Arkady himself nor his brother Boris ever talk about their childhood. The only thing that is known for certain is that Arkasha grew up as an athletic boy, at first he was engaged in acrobatics, and at the age of 12 he came to the judo section. Soon after that, Vova Putin, who was a year younger, also started going there. According to coach Anatoly Rakhlin, both boys were frail, so they performed insame weight category and often trained in pairs, although they were not permanent partners.
Vladimir Putin's words are known about the impact judo had on him. The same can be said for our hero. But only for Arkady, sport for many years became not just a hobby, but a profession and even a science.
Young years and biography gaps
After school, Arkady Rotenberg did not hesitate in choosing a future path in life - it could only be sports, more precisely, professional coaching. He entered the Leningrad Institute of Physical Education and in 1978 successfully graduated from it. By the way, by the time he completed his studies, he was already 27 years old. This means that there were several years between the school and the institute, about which nothing is known either. Did Arkady Rotenberg serve in the army? His biography during this period is almost a continuous "blank spot". It is only known that his eldest son Igor was born in 1970. Consequently, between graduating from school and entering the Rotenberg Institute, Arkady Romanovich managed to get married. But neither the name of his first wife, nor any information about her future fate, we could not find.
Soviet coaching career
After graduating from the institute, Rotenberg Arkady Romanovich began a long and stable period of work in various Leningrad sports organizations. Basically, he trained children, teaching them the techniques of sambo and judo, he was even the director of the Youth Sports School. He took his job veryseriously, as evidenced by Ph. D. and doctoral dissertations.
At that time, old friends parted ways, and Vladimir Putin also left.
Communication with him resumed after Putin returned to Leningrad in 1990. He tracked down an old friend and sparring partner and asked him to resume training together in order to regain his former fitness. Arkady Rotenberg happily agreed, and they again began to converge in fights on the tatami.
Dashing 90s
The beginning of the business of our hero belongs to this period. There are different stories about how this happened. Some consider the so-called "protection" of stalls to be the beginning of his business career, which, given his sports experience in martial arts, looks quite plausible. The names of the leaders of various organized crime groups, with whom our hero allegedly made acquaintance, are called. So be it, remember that time those who lived and survived in it, and those who are too young - reconsider the film "Brother", a lot will become clear for you.
According to Rotenberg himself, said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper in 2010, he began his entrepreneurial activity by organizing martial arts competitions. Remember the “furious” American films of the 90s, in which contenders for the first prize of some fight club fight for life and death in an arena surrounded by spectators excited to the limit? ApparentlyRotenberg had something similar (could it have been different then?).
Starting a serious business
Arkady Rotenberg has a younger brother, Boris, who, following the example of his elder brother, also began to engage in sambo and judo wrestling and achieved considerable success in them - the title of master of sports in both martial arts. In 1992, Boris got a very profitable judo coaching job in Helsinki. Having looked around there, he suggested to his brother that he organize barter deliveries of various goods from Finland to Russia. Fortunately, by that time, Arkady had already made decent money in the business of fighting competitions.
Cooperation began with barter supplies for various structures of Gazprom involved in the construction of gas pipelines. To ensure them, B altic Business Partners CJSC was established, as well as the companies Grant, Shield, Rotna.
A sharp turn in the life of an athlete-businessman
Things went so well that businessman Arkady Rotenberg became a well-known person in St. Petersburg. He was a co-founder of several large trading companies, founded international funds, and in 1998 organized the Yavara-Neva sports club, whose honorary chairman was Vladimir Putin, who since August 1996 has been actively pursuing a state career in Moscow. By the way, according to Rotenberg himself, the idea of creating such a club belongs to Putin, and he only fulfilled the idea of a childhood friend. Nevertheless, the "executor of the plan" was presented on a silver platter for constructionthe club's most valuable piece of land. It is located on Bull Island. But the very quality of "execution of the plan" is beyond praise. By 2010, Yavara-Neva had already won the European Championships six times, becoming the most titled club.
In general, many are inclined to reproach Putin for alleged patronage on his part during his work as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg (and in the future also) to the business ventures of Arkady Rotenberg. However, it is doubtful that the latter needed it. After all, he was like a fish in water in the then semi-criminal (and often outright criminal!) business environment of the Northern capital. But even if this is true, then a person who undertook to clear the new "Augean stables" into which his predecessor turned Russia can be forgiven for much, if not all.
It's time for the banks
One way or another, but by the beginning of the 2000s, the volume of Rotenberg's business operations had become so widespread that he needed his own banking structure to provide them with financial support. In 2001, he became one of the co-founders of Sevmorput Bank (SMP-Bank), a little later, his brother Boris, who returned from Finland, joined this business. By 2002, the Rotenbergs also gained control over MBTS-Bank.
The banks controlled by the brothers had many small and medium business clients. Rumors about the alleged instantaneous arrival of money from Rosspirtprom to SMP Bank are unreliable - the first operations with this structure date back to 2007. Other major clients include Evrazholding.
Now SMP Bank operates in 40 Russiancities, with more than 100 branches. More than half of them are located in Moscow and the region. SMP Bank supervises the operation of more than 900 ATMs. Therefore, this Rotenberg project can be considered quite successful. It continues to develop. So, in 2008, the Investcapital bank from Bashkiria became the property of the brothers.
The Rotenbergs' main business is the "pipe"
It just so happened that by the beginning of the 2000s, the gas producer in Russia was a monopoly, and there were a whole bunch of manufacturers of pipes for gas pipelines and wells, and all under different owners with their own understanding of life. To work with dozens of suppliers, you need a huge staff of suppliers. And no matter how you select honest people for their positions, someone on the other side will surely find a key to them and receive the so-called "illegal benefit." And then Dmitry Medvedev (then the head of Gazprom) will have to figure it out later, fire corrupt suppliers, in general, wasting precious life time.
To solve this problem once and for all, in the depths of the presidential administration they decided to try this method: to centralize the supply of pipe products to Gazprom, but not within the framework of the state structure (this would be an economic "bawton", a return to socialist methods!), but inside a private holding, where applications for all types of products from Gazprom will be sent, and which will fight with suppliers for prices, terms and quality of work. And it was Arkady Rotenberg who was instructed to bring this idea to life.
This is how the famous Trubnyrolled metal” and “Pipe Industry”, owned by the Rotenberg brothers. In addition, by 2010 they gained full control over another trader - the Northern European Pipe Project, concentrating in their hands the entire sub-sector of pipe supplies on the Russian market.
The next logical step is from the supply of pipes to the construction of gas pipelines
In general, all people in the world want to work less and earn more. The former Gazprom leadership headed by Dmitry Medvedev was no exception to this rule. At that time, oil prices rose steadily, gas prices rushed up after them, and it seemed to everyone that "happiness will last forever." But the rosy picture was spoiled by the need to continuously build and repair gas pipelines by the forces of Gazprom itself, within which several powerful territorial construction and installation organizations such as Volgogaz, Lengazspetsstroy, Krasnodargazstroy and others were concentrated. And construction is a troublesome business, its deadlines are always missed, there are always complaints about quality, in general, in the supply chain, “the devil will break his leg.”
And just then an interesting experience arose of farming out the supply of pipes to the Rotenberg firms. Therefore, from the point of view of the Gazprom leadership, it was right to “optimize” the further path of these pipes. Well, why transfer them three or four times to various owners and drive money back and forth: first from the manufacturer to the Rotenberg company, then to Gazprom itself, then from it to the construction and installation organization. What if you puton Rotenberg also the construction of the gas pipelines themselves? No sooner said than done. In 2007, the Stroygazmontazh company of Arkady Rotenberg was established, and in 2007-2008. five largest construction and installation organizations from Gazprom are transferred to her property (on a buyout basis, of course, but how could it be otherwise!) Since then, this company has been fulfilling all major orders of the organization, including the onshore part of the Nord Stream or the gas pipeline to the Olympic Sochi. At the same time, other large contractors were seriously pushed aside, for example, Gennady Timchenko's Stroytransgaz. But, unlike the latter, A. Rotenberg never fails the Russian state. When Timchenko's company refused to build a bridge to the Crimea, roughly speaking, it simply "leaked oil", then it was Stroygazmontazh that undertook this most complicated order. Let us wish him success in this great work for the benefit of all of Russia.
Arkady Rotenberg: family, children, social activities
Above, we have already noted the closeness of this side of our hero's life. In general, let's ask ourselves, can a person like Arkady Rotenberg be happy in his personal life? Children, wife, family, home comfort associated with these concepts, an established, calm rhythm of life - is this all for him? Of course not. A person who is completely devoted to his work, especially if it is of great importance not only for himself, but for the whole country, as a rule, is a very “uncomfortable” life partner, often a bad father. And if he has money and can independently arrange for himself the necessary comforts of life, then write wasted, not a single woman with suchwon't get along. That is why the families of the majority of Russian oligarchs have broken up. For the same reasons, the current Russian president remained alone in his declining years.
The ex-wife of Arkady Rotenberg, Natalya, with whom he was married from 2005 to 2013, is now suing him for compensation. They have two common children. As mentioned above, A. Rotenberg also has a son, Igor, from his first marriage (according to other sources, he has five children in total).
Rothenberg is the president of the Dynamo hockey club in Moscow. In 2013, he became a committee member of the International Judo Federation.
In the same year, Rotenberg became chairman of the Prosveshchenie publishing house, which was once the largest supplier of textbooks in the Soviet Union.
As a result of the 2014 Crimean crisis, the United States federal government blacklisted the Rotenberg brothers and other close friends of the Russian president, including Sergei Ivanov and Gennady Timchenko.
