Who are they, modern Russian billionaires who grew up in the Soviet Union? How did they manage to earn such capital? The director and sole owner of the Pipe Innovative Technologies company is one of those people who built their business after the collapse of the USSR. The biography of Ivan Shabalov is the answer to the questions asked.
First steps
The future entrepreneur was born on January 16, 1959 in Uzbekistan. The family of Ivan Shabalov then lived in the small town of Chirchik, which was located 40 km from Tashkent. Outside the southern gates of the city, the city-forming enterprise, OJSC Uzbek Combine of Refractory and Heat-Resistant Metals, spread its buildings, for which young Ivan Shabalov got a job after graduation.
Note that in Soviet times it was not easy to enter a higher educational institution, especially in the capital. Therefore, there was a practice of referrals: when the management of some large enterprise or collective farm sent its workers to a certaininstitute. There was a condition that after graduation the person would return to work at the enterprise. Applicants with such directions were considered by the selection committee in the first place, therefore the chance of admission was higher. Perhaps even then the entrepreneurial spirit of the future billionaire began to manifest itself, but after a short work at the plant, he received such a direction and entered the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (MISiS).
Scientific activity
After graduating with honors in 1983, Shabalov did not leave to work at the plant, but entered graduate school. In the same year, he got a job at the Central Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy. I. P. Bardina. Started as an ordinary employee. During ten years of work at the institute, Ivan Pavlovich Shabalov rose up the career ladder to the position of deputy director. During this time, he received his Ph. D. in engineering.
Shabalov's scientific interests extended to the steel and pipe industries. Ivan Pavlovich published more than 100 scientific papers during his life. Here are some of them: “Investigation of the formation of rolls on a plate mill 2800” (2004), “Efficiency of gas pipeline construction using pipes of various steel strength classes” (2007), “Current state and features of the economy of the pipe industry” (2008). For the development of new generation steels using naturally alloyed ores of the Khalilovsky deposit for critical metal structures in bridge building, construction, mechanical engineering and the introduction of an integrated technology for their productionPavlovich Shabalov was awarded the Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology in 2004.
He althy ambitions
At 32, being a deputy director of a scientific institute is not a bad career for a provincial guy. As Ivan Shabalov recalls those days, in 1990 he received a very large salary of 2,000 rubles a month, when compared with prices. For example, he then bought a Zhiguli car for 9,000 rubles. But he did not plan to spend his whole life within the walls of the institute. Acquired connections during the work in it served a good service.
In 1991, Oleg Soskovets, former director general of the Karaganda Iron and Steel Works, became head of the Ministry of Metallurgy. Shabalov made an appointment with the minister, because they had known each other when Soskovets was the general director of the plant. After the conversation, on the same day, Shabalov was appointed General Director of the foreign trade company TSK-Steel.
First Lessons in Entrepreneurship
Joint ventures with foreign firms - it was a new trend of perestroika. There were not so many of them, and they were strikingly different from Soviet enterprises. The joint venture had Western equipment, the salary was not an example higher and in foreign currency. For employees of "TSK-Steel" foreign currency accounts were opened in the then cult store "Beryozka". It was one of the few stores in the Soviet Union where foreign currency could buy scarce imported goods.
TSK-Steel was founded in 1989 by the Karaganda Iron and Steel Works and the Swiss trader Sytco. At the enterpriseseveral hundred people worked. A small plant processed rejected steel and exported it. Here Ivan Shabalov got his first experience in managing an enterprise and interacting with foreign buyers. Despite the fact that at that time, according to the law, only state-owned enterprises could export steel, there was no such ban on steel marriage. Therefore, the commercial organization headed by Shabalov freely exported its products.
When one door closes, another opens
The joint venture was a goldmine. The profit was very significant: up to tens of millions of dollars a month. Part of the money was spent on the purchase of parts for tape recorders, food processors, and radio tape recorders, which were later assembled at the plant. All these products were in great demand. The leaders of the enterprise went on permanent business trips abroad, they could afford mobile phones, which cost $ 4,000 from the then only operator. Of course, such we alth could not fail to attract the attention of the criminal world.
Rampant banditry in the 90s had a large scope. No one was surprised by criminal showdowns, murders, division of territories of influence, racketeering. We can say that Shabalov was lucky when in 1993 he took the post of adviser to the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Oleg Soskovets. Because then the heads of enterprises were shot with enviable regularity. Shabalov escaped such a fate, but later, when the USSR completely collapsed, the joint venture, due to non-payments andlost links between enterprises in the post-Soviet space, ceased to exist.
Gift
The country began to leapfrog. Many enterprises were closed, wages were not paid, contractual obligations were not fulfilled. Due to the lack of money, they were calculated by manufactured products. Barter (interchange) was then the only way to survive. At that moment, Ivan Mikhailovich showed his talent as a trader, thanks to numerous connections and his own authority. In 1995, he registered the Russian Chrome trading company, which de alt with the settlement of issues of mutual exchange between many enterprises and the supply of products from the metallurgical industry.
Here is one of the barter chains built by Shabalov. The Kachkanar mining and processing plant received gas from Gazprom, and could only pay with ore. Gazprom did not need the ore, so the ore was transported to the Orsk-Khalilovsky plant, which produced the harvesting. These blanks were transported to pipe factories, and the finished pipes were delivered to Gazprom. In this way, the Kachkanar GOK paid for gas. The time was vague and unreliable. For years, the relationships built up collapsed with the arrival of new heads of enterprises, which then changed very often. To survive in those difficult conditions, of course, you needed a strong character and the gift of foresight.
Business Sharks
One interesting episode in the life of Ivan Shabalov reveals another facet of his character, which helped him survive and rise in the metallurgical business. This isacceptance of any situations and concession if there are no other ways out. This happened with the Orsk-Khalilovsky plant. In 1999, the owner of the plant, Andrei Andreev, invited Shabalov to the position of general director, in the hope that he, as an expert in the metallurgical industry and the owner of a trading company, would be useful to the enterprise. Indeed, Shabalov provided the plant with raw materials and managed well.
But already from the beginning of the 2000s Andreev began to be attacked by business sharks. And in 2001, the Orsk-Khalilovsky plant, along with other assets of Andreev, passed to the concern of Oleg Deripaska. Naturally, Shabalov vacates the chair of the general director, but the plant did not pay the trading company for raw materials. The new management was willing to return the debt, but with a 50% discount. Shabalov preferred to “gift” a debt rather than agree to a predatory discount.
Gazprom
Thanks to his work on credit schemes, Ivan Shabalov was known in the entire metallurgical industry of the country. When the problem arose of supplying large-diameter pipes (LDP) for Gazprom, Shabalov suggested that the leading pipe factories create an Association of Pipe Manufacturers. In 2002, he became chairman of the coordinating council of the Association. And with his proposals he goes to the leadership of Gazprom. Rem Vyakhirev did not consider these proposals then, but a year later the new head of the concern, Alexei Miller, approved the cooperation.
Forbes
Ivan Pavlovich Shabalov established a trading company in 2005Northern European Pipe Project (SEPT), which supplied LDP for Gazprom. In addition, he went out to foreign suppliers. The German company Europipe supplied large-diameter pipes for Gazprom. Ivan Pavlovich offered the Germans his services in expanding the Russian sales market, adding oil and nuclear workers there. This is how Eurotub, an intermediary organization, was born, which in a year reached a turnover of about 100 million euros.
Expanding business demanded new steps from Shabalov Ivan Pavlovich. Pipe Innovative Technologies is a new trading company in the assets of the entrepreneur, which he opened in 2006. Both of his firms work closely with Gazprom. Shabalov in these years is one of the largest suppliers. According to Forbes, Ivan Shabalov is one of the elite group of entrepreneurs who are called the kings of the state order.
Favorites
Gazprom is the largest consumer on the Russian pipe market. For the implementation of the projects "South Stream", "Nord Stream", "Nord Stream 2" billion-dollar contracts were mastered. Not so many enterprises that produced products of this nature participated in the tender for the supply of pipes. In the early 2000s, there was still a big risk of running into fly-by-night companies and losing money, so Gazprom enters into contracts with trusted partners. In 2003, in order to minimize risks, Gazprom organizes the Gaztaged company, 25% of whose shares belonged to Boris Rotenberg.
In 2010the company had to be liquidated because of the scandals that erupted around it. The liquidation of the company was entrusted to Shabalov. Since then, little has changed. Tenders for the supply of large-diameter pipes, as a rule, are won by the same entrepreneurs: the Rotenberg brothers, Valery Komarov, Anatoly Sedykh, Dmitry Pumpyansky and Ivan Shabalov.
We had a nice chat
One gets the impression that Shabalov is a minion of fate, and everything is easy for him. Only he alone knows what it takes to part with an established business when a stronger competitor comes along. In 2007, the Rotenberg brothers began to look at Shabalov's companies. The businessmen have known each other since 2002, when Boris Rotenberg met with Shabalov to find out the prospects for the pipe business. According to Ivan Pavlovich, the conversation was comfortable.
And already in 2007, he sells two-thirds of the shares of 50% of Eurotub to the Rotenbergs. And in 2010, after another comfortable conversation, the Rotenbergs received 60% of the CEPT. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
Conclusion
Now Ivan Pavlovich Shabalov and Pipe Innovative Technologies are still on the market. And still he wins Gazprom's tenders. Let not in such volumes as before, but it's better than nothing.
A lot is known about Ivan Pavlovich as a businessman, but there is nothing about his personal life. You will not meet Ivan Shabalov and his wife anywhere. No family information. In the photo, Ivan Shabalov is either alone or with partners. The conclusion suggests itself that business for Shabalov has become the only attachment in life.
