Biography Michelson Novatek

In the footsteps of his father, he graduated from the architectural and construction university in Samara. Then he worked as a foreman in Siberia at the construction site of the Urengoy -Chelyabinsk gas pipeline. In the north, according to Michelson himself, the businessman learned to work with different contingent: yesterday's prisoners were often his subordinates. In the north, everything was done at the limit, which was clinging to the businessman, he recalled.

He is the builder in the broad sense of the word. It creates something all the time, and it has a value for him, ”said a businessman familiar with Michelson. In the year, Michelson became the chief engineer of the Ryazanbobobobroistroy trust. At that time, his father, Viktor Michelson, who headed another trust, “Kuibyshev Strusobobropanstroy”, is seriously ill.

Leonid is trying to replace his father as a manager, however, other employees of the enterprise apply to the place of the head. A friend of his father from the city party committee helps Michelson lead the trust. A few days later, his father dies, and Mikhelson decides to dismiss employees who staged squabbles at the enterprise during this period, his acquaintance says.

In the year, the trust became a private construction enterprise Novova. Later, the company was corporate and subordinated to the management company Novafinvest, which became the general director of Mikhelson. The company has received the rights to extract natural gas at several large Yamal deposits. In the year, Novafinvest will be renamed Novatek. How did Michelson get its company?

He built it, because there was no such company before Mikhelson, ”Leonid Michelson in an interview with Forbes to the question of how Novatek appeared, Michelson joked: two beggars united - the builder and geologist. The builder was Mikhelson himself, and the geologist was Joseph Levinzon. They met in the year when Levinzon led the company Purneftegazgeology, and later became the vice-governor of the Yamalo-Nenets district.

Levinzon had deposits, Michelson had opportunities for their development. Oil and gas companies did not have money, and they were calculated by shares. In the year, Novafinvest decided to combine assets with the largest private gas company Igor Igor Makarov a. The latter had strong ties with the chairman of the board of Gazprom by Rem Vyakhirev. Partners created the Holding Oil and Gas Company ITER, the board of which was headed by Michelson, and the board of directors - Makarov.

However, the deal fell apart: six months later, ITERS had problems with the new head of Gazprom Alexei Miller: he began to return the assets that, under the former voltage, went to ITER. However, Makarov did not want to give in to the giant to Iter. Then Gazprom limited the company access to sales markets and did not allow the coastal deposit to launch. One of the politicians supported this idea, but someone is not.

” He lost to Gazprombank the Tambeneftegaz block package. During this period, Michelson also manages to establish a partnership with businessman Gennady Timchenko. Timchenko already had the experience of international projects, was known abroad, and also had a significant administrative and financial resource, said Andrei Akimov, familiar to the chairman of the Gazprombank board. He did not need an industrial partner, but at the same time he needed to leave a narrow world to international business, ”said Akimov's acquaintance.

The media called him the son -in -law of President Vladimir Putin. One of the main projects of Novateka is an integrated project for the extraction, lures and implementation of Yamal LNG gas. Michelson planned to engage in the production of LNG even before meeting Timchenko, but the ability to implement such a large -scale project appeared precisely thanks to a billionaire, the media wrote.

The total project cost is estimated at $ 27 billion. The resource base for the project was the South Tembeyskoye Department. Two years later, the regional prosecutor’s office was canceled by some fund transactions, Levinzon resigned, and Novatek sold the Tambeneftegaz shares “Gazprombank’s daughter”. Then the asset moved to Timchenko, who in the year sold it to Novateka for a million dollars.

Two years later, in M, Mikhelson began to attract foreign partners. In the year, Michelson founded the V-A-C fund. Its activity is aimed at developing contemporary art in Russia. For the station, he paid Gazprom 1.7 billion rubles. The opening took place in December. As Mikhelson himself admitted in a conversation with Vedomosti, his interest in modern art is largely due to the enthusiasm of Victoria's eldest daughter.

According to the businessman, she studies at the Faculty of Art History and works in the Victoria Art Fund. Michelson himself fell only in the sanctions of Great Britain. Nevertheless, indirectly sanctions hit the Arctic LNG-2 project. Russian project creditors fell under sanctions, the French Total left the project, and Chinese and American companies stopped supplying equipment. Leonid Simanovsky.

Nevertheless, the government allowed Novatek to export LNG, emphasizing that LNG should not compete with Gazprom's pipeline supplies. In m, President Vladimir Putin recalled this once again.First: Spain must be excluded from the analysis - there the closed market and there were significant volumes both in spare trade and in long -term contracts. The second point: a lot of raw materials in Europe simply overloaded, but the final consumer was beyond, ”the head of the company explained.

Michelson also emphasizes that the main client of Novateka is still Asia and the company did not change its orientation to the east. Gazprom said that the budget losses from the Yamal LNG project amounted to million dollars, and the company itself did not receive $ 1.3 billion. Gazprom recalled that with every thousand cubic meters of exported gas to m, the company transferred from above rubles to the budget.

The head of the department, Alexander Novak, replied that the ministry did not see a threat in this situation. According to him, Novatek does not dump and works so as not to economically harm the supply of pipe. Selected quotes “I believe that not everything in this life depends only on you. Therefore, what was happening in the years was wild for me. Chaos, no one controls anything, total shifting responsibility.

” It is incorrect to translate it into numbers. ” The personal life of the spouse is Lyudmila Michelson. The billionaire met his future wife at the institute. They have two daughters. In August, Victoria Michelson became the owner of the construction company Novova. In October last year, the company again passed to her father. As Kommersant wrote, actions to change owners could be related to preparation for any transaction or protection against possible sanctions.

I know how hard the business is.

People's relations change when they are engaged in business, and I do not want this to happen to my daughter ” - Leonid Michelson.