His parents, teachers at Tashkent universities, insisted that their son enter the university at the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

At that time, the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Tashkent University was closely connected with military organizations and trained employees to work in the countries of the East, where the USSR supplied weapons. Which was especially honorable and promised an extraordinary career rise.

After graduating from college, Iskander Makhmudov went to work in Libya and then to Iraq. In Libya, he worked in an organization called the Main Engineering Directorate, this is the Soviet analogue of Rosvooruzhenie. In Iraq - in one of the Soviet departments that was involved in construction.

Then Makhmudov was invited to the state foreign trade organization Uzbekintorg, which, within the framework of allocated national quotas, was engaged in the purchase of goods necessary for the republic. He gained his first serious commercial experience there.

Later, Iskander Makhmudov moved to Moscow, where he met his old acquaintance and fellow countryman Mikhail Cherny. They took their first steps in business together. Makhmudov got a job in one of the Trans World Group structures, but soon left there and started selling copper.

From July 1994 to February 1996 - Director of JSC Industrial and Financial Company Meta Service.

Best of the day

In 1996 Makhmudov became the general director of the Gaisky mining and processing plant, the leading enterprise in the Urals for the extraction of copper ore.

In 1999 together with his partners, he created the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), of which he has been president since its founding until now.

What does he own?

UMMC was founded in 1999. structures of the current president of the company, Iskander Makhmudov. By that time, Makhmudov, together with his partners, had bought shares in most copper enterprises in Russia - from mining and processing plants to plants producing final copper products (in total, more than 20 enterprises in Russia, as well as the Lithuanian Litkabel; their total turnover in 2001 was $1.2 billion). Under the auspices of UMMC it was planned to consolidate all controlled copper assets. However, the consolidation process dragged on: only in the spring of 2002. UMMC received permission to acquire controlling stakes in the holding's parent enterprises - Uralelectromed (60% of shares) and Gaisky GOK (40.67%) (Vedomosti, 2002).

According to experts, Makhmudov now controls the production of 35-40% of Russian copper, the rest falls on the share of Norilsk Nickel.

Partners

Oleg Deripaska is named among Iskander Makhmudov’s partners.

In addition to Deripaska, Makhmudov is also credited with friendship with Alexander Mamut. However, all this, by Iskander Makhmudov’s own admission, is in the past: “Several of our enterprises once owned shares in MDM Bank. But that was a very long time ago, we sold these papers and no longer maintain any business relations. And our friendly relations are not bad. Especially with Melnichenko, whom we have known for a long time. I know Mamut worse.” (“Vedomosti”, 2001).

Alexander Abramov, head of EvrazHolding, in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper in 2002. he spoke about the partnership with Iskander Makhmudov: “Makhmudov is a shareholder of NTMK. He has a 6.8% stake in the plant. We have a processing agreement under which he supplies NTMK with raw materials from the Kachkanarsky GOK, which he owns, and takes away the finished metal. We also had a stake in the Kachkanarsky GOK, but we sold it. Makhmudov considers it advisable to maintain the stake in NTMK. If we agree with Lisin [NLMK] on a merger, then it would be logical to consolidate the Kachkanarsky GOK into a large company. We will resolve this issue with the owners of the mining and processing plant.”

Opponents

Now Mikhail Zhivilo, the head of the Metallurgical Investment Company (MIKOM), has filed a lawsuit in an American court, accusing Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov of giving bribes, racketeering, and even organizing contract killings.

Mikhail Zhivilo was joined by Makhmudov’s former partner and closest friend, Jalol Khaidarov, whom the head of UMMC Iskander Makhmudov first appointed to lead the Kachkanarsky GOK, and then, accusing him of withdrawing shares, forcefully expelled him from the enterprise.

According to Alexey Mordashov, General Director of Severstal OJSC, he has assumptions that Makhmudov was not involved in the scandal associated with the lawsuit of his ex-wife Elena Mordashova. Makhmudov himself also commented on the situation: “I have absolutely nothing to do with this story. I don’t know what grounds Mordashov has to talk about my involvement in the case. You have to ask him yourself. True, I am closely following the story, and if Mrs. Mordashova manages to sue for something, I will offer to buy something from her.”

Lobby

Some analysts believe that UMMC was an element of the so-called “Family” and now maintains strong ties in the highest echelons of Russian power.

Where are interests directed?

Resources

In the area of interest of Iskander Makhmudov are the Kuzbass coal mines, which supply coke to metallurgical plants. Makhmudov owns a third of Kuzbass coal production (a seventh of all coal production in Russia). UMMC controls Kuzbassrazrezugol, the largest coal company in the country. 16% of the shares of Kuzbassugol, the second coal company, owned by the Kemerovo region, by order of Governor Aman Tuleyev, were sold without announcement or competition to one single buyer. It was the Novosibirsk intermediary company Belon. There is an opinion that Iskander Makhmudov is behind it.

UMMC is one of the real contenders for purchasing a license to develop the largest in Russia and third in the world Udokan copper deposit (Chita region). It contains 20 million tons of “pure” copper, which is a quarter of the national reserves.

Enterprises for processing non-ferrous metals

UMMC is systematically absorbing “secondary processing” enterprises - cable and rolled products producers. In particular, the holding plans to gain full control over OJSC Sibkabel. St. Petersburg-based Sevkabel may also be of interest to the holding.

Ferrous metallurgy.

UMMC is a participant in the dispute over stakes in OJSC Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, plans to gain control over it, and in the future, create a powerful metallurgical alliance.

Makhmudov’s plans are to bring Severstal under his control. The first step on this path has already been taken: the MDM group, “allied” with Makhmudov, took possession of 36% of the shares of the Kovdor Mining and Processing Plant, a strategic supplier of Severstal (25% of the iron ore purchased by Severstal).

Chemistry

In Kuzbass business circles, they speak with caution and irritation about Makhmudov’s claims to the Kemerovo Azot chemical plant, which is now owned by the gas and petrochemical concern SIBUR. There is information that, having gained control over a significant part of Kuzbass coal, Makhmudov is trying to take control over the Altai “Koks”, the largest Russian coke chemical enterprise.

Transport

UMMC, through its OJSC Kuzbassrazrezugol, acquired control over OJSC Rosterminalugol in the Leningrad region - a specialized port whose capacity in the future can transship up to 6-10 million tons of coal per year. Now the controlling stake in the terminal belongs to the state, but Kuzbassrazrezugol, having bought 45% of the shares, plans to take control of the port. According to some reports, the holding is also interested in controlling one of the ports of the Far East, which are so far divided between Severstal, MDM, EvrazHolding, MMK and the Alliance group.

In the future, the oligarch's expansion may affect railways and power plants, the privatization of which will take place in the coming years.

Personal

Iskander Makhmudov is married for the second time. Makhmudov broke up with his former wife even before moving to Moscow, but, according to some sources, he devotes a lot of time to his son from his first marriage.

tashkentskay Shkola,Best of the Bests.
Ulugbek Djamalov. 14.08.2010 06:45:16

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09/11/2001, "Iskander from Bukhara"

Inna Lukyanova

If you believe the rumors, then only Berezovsky was more terrible and more influential than the head of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company Iskander Makhmudov in our country. Makhmudov does not give interviews, rarely appears in public, and in the Makhmudov-Deripaska tandem (in this context it is most often customary to mention the name of our hero), he is assigned the role of a punishing hand, merciless to competitors.

Iskander Makhmudov, the man who controls the production of more than forty percent of Russian copper, can confidently be considered one of the most “secret” characters in Russian business. [...]

Translated from Arabic

On December 5, Iskander Makhmudov will turn 38 years old. From the mountain of pre-shoveled magazines and newspapers, we managed to learn three things about him: he is extremely dangerous, he is an Uzbek by nationality, and was born in Baku. However, as it turned out, Iskander Makhmudov has nothing to do with Baku. I've only been there twice in my life, visiting friends.

He was born in Bukhara, also a city with a “B” (isn’t this what caused the confusion?), and spent his childhood and youth in Tashkent. His parents, teachers at Tashkent universities, insisted that their son enter the university, the Faculty of Oriental Studies. However, they say that it was not only the parents’ will that dictated the choice of university and faculty. At that time, the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Tashkent University was closely connected with military organizations and trained employees to work in the countries of the East, where the USSR supplied weapons. Which was especially honorable and promised an extraordinary career rise.[...]

After graduating from college, Iskander went to work in Libya and then to Iraq. [...] In Libya, he worked in an organization called the “Main Engineering Directorate”, this is the Soviet analogue of the current Rosvooruzhenie. In Iraq - in one of the Soviet departments that was involved in construction."

Makhmudov, by his own admission, was not only a translator from Arabic into Russian: “In these countries, you see, a translator is not just a translator, but a person who solves problems. Many of our specialists who worked there simply did not understand who they were Arabs. They had never encountered such a mentality and psychology; they knew neither literature, nor history, nor traditions. Therefore, many problems had to be sorted out by us, translators. In general, when at the age of 21 you go abroad at a time when few people go there , you feel differently.[...]"

Fire, water and copper pipes

Makhmudov’s “Arab” period lasted four years, and he returned to his small homeland when perestroika was already in full swing. Iskander was invited to the state foreign trade organization Uzbekintorg, which, within the framework of allocated national quotas, was engaged in the purchase of goods necessary for the republic. Makhmudov acquired his first serious commercial experience there.

Then, by his own admission, things became crowded in the republic, and he moved to Moscow. At first, Makhmudov lived in “Russia” in the capital. “Back then it was still customary that you couldn’t stay in one hotel for more than a month. A month passed, I went to another hotel for one day, then came back, got a room and lived again. Since then I can’t look at the Stolichny salad and pike perch in Polish,” recalls Makhmudov.

In Moscow, Iskander met his old acquaintance and fellow countryman Mikhail Cherny. They took their first steps in business together. We started traditionally, like everyone else, with the question: “What are we going to do?”

It is symbolic that the business of Makhmudov’s competitor, Mikhail Zhivilo, who was defeated by him, was born in approximately the same way in the recent past. One of the latter’s comrades said that they sat down in the same way and also asked themselves the eternal Russian question: “What to do?” As a rule, they did what their eyes saw, although they understood little about it.

True, unlike Zhivilo, who immediately rushed into the aluminum pool, Makhmudov and Cherny went through the intermediate stage - trading. Then Iskander got a job in one of the structures of the well-known Trans World Group, but soon left there and started selling copper. [...]

Now Makhmudov actually owns 20 enterprises in the copper industry and controls the production of 40% of Russian copper. The remaining 60% falls on Norilsk Nickel. Many consider Makhmudov a monopolist. Perhaps it is precisely because of this that his Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company - UMMC - is still not registered by the antimonopoly committee.

Despite the success that accompanied our hero in business, Makhmudov did not communicate with virtually anyone from the Moscow business cohort for the time being. And how can a visiting Uzbek get along with people from privileged Moscow families who graduated from the most prestigious Moscow universities?

Later, he put together a strong tandem with a provincial young man like him, Oleg Deripaska.

"Sweet couple"

The tandem was extremely colorful. Despite many external differences, Makhmudov and Deripaska are united by the bulldog grip and business aggression characteristic of most provincials: any scandal associated with the acquisition of an enterprise in the aluminum or copper industry is not complete without mentioning these two names.

“We were introduced by some people, I don’t even remember now. Oleg was just starting to work with aluminum at the Sayan plant. We are completely different in character, in approaches, in temperament. Oleg has a completely Nordic disposition, he is all in himself "Silently experiences both successes and failures. Very calm. But before I could yell at my subordinates. That's why maybe they agreed."

The “sweet couple” is constantly haunted by the question of which of the two is more important. Makhmudov claims that no one. It’s just that Deripaska is a good friend to him, sometimes they help each other, and that’s all. In addition to Deripaska, Makhmudov is also credited with friendship with Alexander Mamut. At one time, rumors circulated in the business community about Makhmudov’s involvement in MDM Bank and MDM Group. However, all this, according to our hero, is also in the past: “Several of our enterprises once owned shares in MDM Bank. But that was a very long time ago, we sold these papers and no longer maintain any business relations. But we have friendly relations "We're not bad. Especially Melnichenko, whom we've known for a long time. I know Mamut worse."

Makhmudov dismisses all accusations of scandalousness and aggression: “UMMC actually manages 20 enterprises. We didn’t have twenty scandals, right? There was one scandal - Kachkanar. And that’s all. Well, okay, two scandals: Kachkanar - long ago and now - Karabash".

The accusations against Makhmudov are traditional: he acts not according to the court and not at all according to his conscience, but by force, using police and special forces, trying to take over enterprises.

At the same time, none of the representatives of the mentioned plants wanted to give any comments on the subject of Makhmudov. Even one of Zhivilo’s comrades, in whose overthrow Makhmudov played one of the main roles, hastily answered our question: “What about Makhmudov? I treat him very well, very much.”

For bad memory...

“I don’t like the word “fear” at all,” argues Makhmudov. We are not children to be afraid of the dark or tigers. In business, you don’t need to be afraid of anyone. You have to be afraid. Us included. Because we don’t forget insults to anyone. Even If you don’t have the strength today to pay tribute to the offender, you just need to put the information in your memory, and the time will come someday anyway.”

No one knows what offense Makhmudov did not forgive the head of Mikom, Mikhail Zhivilo. But the fact remains: Makhmudov, one of the largest creditors of KMK, did not have much difficulty in bankrupting the plant. Now Zhivilo has filed a lawsuit in an American court, accusing Deripaska and Makhmudov of giving bribes, racketeering, and even contract killings. Zhivilo was joined by Makhmudov’s former partner and closest friend, Jolal Khaidarov, who walked hand in hand with Makhmudov for twenty years and probably knows a lot about his former comrade-in-arms.

However, Makhmudov takes this quite calmly: “What Khaidarov can tell concerns himself, first of all. I’m not a manager at my core. Over the past seven years, I haven’t signed a single paper. Not a single one. But Khaidarov - yes. Therefore, if he starts to tell something, he will not talk about me.”

One of the latest scandals in which Makhmudov found himself drawn was the family drama that erupted in the family of “steel magnate” Alexei Mordashov. Coincidentally or not, as soon as Mr. Mordashov publicly announced that he intended to compete for Kuzbassugol, which is the patrimony of Iskander Makhmudov, Mordashov’s ex-wife immediately made herself known, accusing him of not paying sufficient alimony on his son.

https://www.site/2013-05-27/neskolko_faktov_iz_zhizni_iskandera_mahmudova_izvestnyh_tolko_samomu_blizkomu_okruzheniyu_biznesmena

Several facts from the life of Iskander Makhmudov, known only to the businessman’s closest circle

Forbes published a large material about the life and development of the founder and president of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, Iskander Makhmudov, who ranks 15th on the Forbes list with a fortune of $8.7 billion. The text contains facts that are still known only to Makhmudov’s closest circle.

Iskander Makhmudov, a native of Bukhara, was brought to the Uzbek capital by his parents (father is a civil engineer, mother is a teacher of Russian language) in early childhood. There in 1980 he entered the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Tashkent University. Classmates whom Forbes asked about Iskander responded that he was “not remembered for anything.” Perhaps this quality attracted the student’s attention to services that value unnoticed people with knowledge of foreign languages.

A specialist in the field of history and literature, Iskander Makhmudov, went to Libya in 1985 from the Main Engineering Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the predecessor of Rosoboronexport. Makhmudov spent 1.5 years in Libya, then 2.5 years in Iraq. And then from the position of “engineer-translator” he left for another organization - the republican foreign trade association “Uzbekintorg”. His department “Prommashsyrye” exported industrial products of Uzbek factories, mainly metallurgy and chemistry. “In exchange, they brought popular goods to Uzbekistan: sheepskin coats, clothes, other junk - in general, scarce goods of the late 1980s,” recalls one of Makhmudov’s longtime acquaintances. In this area in Tashkent there was no one more famous than the brothers Lev and Mikhail Cherny, “guild workers” of the Soviet era and prominent cooperators.

In the late 1980s, Tashkent became crowded for Cherny, and they moved to Moscow. In 1989, they founded the Soviet-Panamanian joint venture Columbus, which called timber trading its specialty, but in fact made money on everything. Initially, everything in Columbus was run by his elder brother Lev and his closest associate, another native of Tashkent, Yakov Goldovsky. Therefore, Mikhail decided to organize his own business, also relying on his fellow countrymen. In 1991, he invited Makhmudov to move to Moscow and work for him - Cherny needed people with experience in working with foreign markets. He has already found an American investor, Sam Kislin.

Former Odessa resident Semyon Kislin emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, made money selling household appliances and came to Russia in the hope of making money from the emerging capitalism. Trans Commodities was his company, and in the early days it sold everything. Its employees speak with a grin about the incident with two containers of “excellent, but very cheap sneakers, $1 a pair,” bought somewhere by Kislin, which were resold without looking at them for $4. The buyer soon called and reported that the sneakers were falling apart the first time they were worn - it turned out that these were slippers for the dead, intended for dressing in a coffin. The jokes ended when Trans Commodities entered the metallurgy. Makhmudov was put in charge of the coal sector because he had experience working with industrial raw materials.

Kislin's money allowed Trans Commodities to become the kings of the market in the early 1990s. “Nobody offered such conditions - a ton of coal cost, say, 150 rubles, they paid 150 plus a dollar on top, and all the mines were lining up for them,” recalls the owner of one of the metallurgical companies. Coal was sent for processing, coke was supplied to metallurgists, and payment was accepted in steel, which was loaded for export. The difference in internal and external prices and frantic inflation gave a margin of hundreds of percent; the company’s turnover exceeded $100 million a year, fantastic money for that time. The company expanded and hired new people, one of them in 1992 was the former deputy director of the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant, Vladimir Lisin, who was invited to Trans Commodities by Makhmudov, who had worked with him at Uzbekintorg.

And Kislin, who had invested $30 million in operations with metallurgical raw materials, became redundant: he was offered to carry out “representative functions” in New York. When Kislin tried to argue, Chernoy organized a new company, Trans CIS Commodities, where all the employees of the old one moved at once. Kislin threatened to sue, they only laughed at him and advised him to think about his own health. “I sold everything. Rather than lie in a coffin with money, I preferred to live with my wife and children,” Kislin recalled in an interview with Forbes.

Meanwhile, Lev Chernoy also got involved in metallurgy, unexpectedly even for himself: someone paid him with a shipment of aluminum and, in search of a buyer, Lev contacted the Briton David Ruben. Ruben later recalled the day when, in 1992, a lame man with a heavy cane entered his new Moscow office (Lev Chernoy suffered from polio as a child, and he had a prosthesis below the knee of one leg). Bombay natives David and Simon owned the company Trans World: David was responsible for metal trading, Simon invested profits in British real estate, which now forms the basis of the Rubens' fortune (No. 103 in the Forbes world ranking). They don't want to remember the past. “Who... gave you this number? Don’t call me ever again,” David said in response to Forbes’ call.

The Rubens proposed a joint business: the company of the Cherny brothers and the Rubens would later be called Trans World Group (TWG). The owners themselves preferred not to call it anything: the union of the “guild workers” with the Rubens, obsessed with complex schemes, gave birth to a monster. In its heyday in the mid-1990s, TWG was made up of hundreds of offshore companies and trusts that owned each other, swapped places, were liquidated and replaced by others, and sometimes it was impossible to tell who owned what or where the end of the chain was. But two former TWG executives told Forbes that the business was divided equally between the Reubens and the Chernys, with each brother owning 25%. The shares of Cherny's junior, Russian partners were “conceptually” placed within their shares in TWG.

“Conceptually” means that the Chernys did not care about the legal registration of these shares: the agreements were mainly verbal and for each project the share of the junior partner was negotiated separately. Business has always been very personal. “Lev generally has a difficult character, perhaps due to his disability, and he always did not like Makhmudov and Deripaska and convinced Misha that they would betray him,” says a good friend of Chernykh and Makhmudov. When in 1993, Mikhail Chernoy and another of his partners, Anton Malevsky, left for Israel and Lev remained on the farm in Moscow, he immediately had a conflict with Makhmudov. “Mikhail loved him [Makhmudov], but Lev didn’t accept him right away. It ended with Lev removing him from working with aluminum and Makhmudov taking up copper,” Vladimir Lisin, who served as vice president of Trans CIS Commodities, explained to Forbes.

In 1993, Makhmudov left TWG, remaining a partner with Mikhail Cherny in projects outside the group, and in 1994 he began buying up shares in copper enterprises. As Cherney himself later said at one of the trials, initially their shares in common projects with Makhmudov were divided in a ratio of 70 to 30, and by the end of the 1990s it was already 50 to 50. Cherney had approximately the same partnership with Oleg Deripaska, the owner of a small stake in the Sayan Aluminum Smelter. He approached Mikhail for money to increase his share in SaAZ and became another of his junior partners.

“Leva and Misha always had a flair for capture. [Boris Berezovsky’s former partner Badri] Patarkatsishvili had the same instinct, but Badri loved to negotiate, and they usually went hard and put the talented guy on the asset - Makhmudov, Deripaska, Lisin, Nekrich,” says the businessman, who owned one from metallurgical companies. What is "hard"? “Good friendship with the police, the courts, the prosecutor’s office, and the governor. They didn’t get involved with crime; rather, law enforcement agencies bought them,” says Anton Bakov, who headed the Serov Metallurgical Plant, which Chernoy and his partners became the owners of in 2000. – Our plant, on the orders of Rossel, was seized by “200 Spartans”, I arrived: iron bars, they don’t let me in. We protested for a week and admitted defeat.”

The former owner of the MIKOM company, Mikhail Zhivilo, who in the 1990s owned several large metallurgical plants in Kuzbass (later the plants became part of Evraz and Rusal), was ready to give up, but on market conditions. “They said: no, we’ll take it anyway,” this is how Zhivilo recalled in a conversation with Forbes his negotiations with Cherny and his partners about control over his business. Zhivilo signed the sale of the business from France, where he was hiding from a criminal case opened in his homeland - and “for much less money than the business actually cost.”

But there have also been atypical takeover stories. Makhmudov looked closely at Uralelectromed for about a year, which later became the basis of his copper holding. He supplied raw materials to the plant and met the commercial director of the enterprise, a “talented guy” Andrei Kozitsyn. “The plant owed Cherny and Makhmudov a lot of money for raw materials, but the director didn’t notice them at all, he didn’t care,” recalls an acquaintance of Makhmudov in an interview with Forbes. But in vain. Kozitsyn, through the Vita company, controlled 30% of the plant, Makhmudov came to an agreement with him, organized a quick purchase of papers from workers, and in 1995, Uralelectromed already had new owners and a new director - Kozitsyn himself. He became Makhmudov's junior partner, still heads the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), and his fortune reaches $1.2 billion.

In the mid-1990s, all of Cherny’s junior partners lived as a friendly team: they worked on common projects, together they financed the most unexpected businesses, such as Soyuzkontrakt, famous for the advertising campaign “The Legs Are Flying,” or Yudashkin’s Fashion House. They loved to relax noisily in nightclubs or abroad. Partners in many projects and regulars at parties were Anton Malevsky and Sergei Popov, whom Deripaska would call “members of an organized crime group” and “rooftop” in his testimony to a London court ten years later. But that came later, and then the whole team supported Cherny after the break in relations with TWG in 1997.

David Reuben once boasted in an interview with Fortune magazine that by 1997 the group owned large stakes in at least 20 steel plants. TWG was the largest private client of Russian Railways, controlled the largest aluminum smelters, 20% of the Russian ferrous metallurgy, a significant part of the metallurgy of Kazakhstan and Ukraine, ports, transport companies, the group's revenue in 1997 amounted to $6 billion. But it was then that a split occurred in the TWG.

There were many reasons: Mikhail quarreled with the Rubens and accused them of theft, Lev did not trust his brother’s younger partners, the Rubens dreamed of selling their part of the business to Western buyers and wanted to clear themselves of the “raider” trail. Lev was the generator of ideas, Mikhail was responsible for their implementation, so it was he who was surrounded by people whose reputation could interfere with the deal. In 1997, the Rubens convinced Lev to pay his brother $400 million for his share in TWG (settlements took place in 1999). Mikhail retreated - as it turned out later, only for a while - and began to build his own business. In 1997, he created Siberian Aluminum, which was headed by Deripaska. And in 1999 - the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, the management of which was entrusted to Makhmudov.

In 1998, the business of Cherny and Makhmudov was replenished with another asset: they bought a 40% stake in Kuzbassrazrezugol (KRU), then the largest coal company in Russia and the main supplier of coking coal for metallurgy. Three groups fought for Kuzbassrazrezugol - Interfin of Alisher Usmanov, Andrey Skoch and Lev Kvetny; “Mikom” by Mikhail Zhivilo and Chernoy himself with Makhmudov. Usmanov agreed to buy the company's shares through Imperial Bank, but in the spring of 1998 the bank needed money, and its owner Sergei Rodionov put up a 40% stake in Kuzbassrazrezugol for sale. The first contender was Zhivilo, who transferred a deposit of $27 million. However, soon Makhmudov’s acquaintance Andrei Bokarev came to Rodionov and said that there were other contenders - Chernoy and his partners. They looked “more convincing,” recalls a participant in those events, and, moreover, without any papers or guarantees, Makhmudov transferred $27 million to Imperial, which was returned to Zhivilo. For Interfin, which tried to object, Cherny and his partners also had serious arguments.

By 2000, Chernoy and Makhmudov increased the KRU stake to a controlling stake, Bokarev became a managing and junior partner in the coal company, and then in the rest of Makhmudov’s businesses. Now his fortune, according to Forbes, is $1.35 billion.

During the collapse of TWG, each of the participants in the “conceptual” business tried to snatch their share, which sometimes resulted in a full-scale war. One of its episodes is the history of the Kachkanarsky GOK, control over which in the spring of 1999 was tried to be seized by Cherny’s protege Jalol Khaidarov, a classmate of Makhmudov, with whom they had been friends since they were 16 years old. Khaidarov managed the mining and processing plant on behalf of Cherny and his partners and at the same time bought shares himself. At some point, the senior partners decided that he was stealing their money. Khaidarov (according to documents, the owner of the mining and processing plant) decided to take the fight. Iskander was assigned to investigate: he once brought Jalol to the group.

The “War for Kachkanar” was remembered for its details: the roads leading to the city were blocked by dump trucks and a derailed train; a group of shareholders tried to enter Kachkanar under the guise of skiers and ended up holding an extraordinary meeting in the winter forest; the plane with the security support group was turned around in the air and disarmed by the police. Lawyers were drowning in dozens of conflicting court decisions.

It was then that the public first heard the name of Iskander Makhmudov - he won. At the height of the conflict, police detained Khaidarov in a Moscow cafe and found heroin in his pocket. Soon after this, he fled abroad and already there filed a lawsuit in an American court against the “criminal group” consisting of Cherny, Deripaska, Malevsky, Evraz and the MDM group - and, of course, against his old friend Makhmudov. Khaidarov accused them of hundreds of crimes, ranging from organizing murder and extortion to bribing governors and money laundering. But the US court decided that the case did not fall within its jurisdiction, Khaidarov lost the courts in Russia, and now he lives in Israel under a different name. Forbes was unable to contact him.

“Khaidarov decided that he needed to be independent. He would have come normally, said, for God’s sake, buy it, and they would have gone their separate ways. But he took a different path. I had to prove to him that everything was wrong,” recalls a Forbes interlocutor surrounded by Makhmudov. He calls Khaidarov’s accusations “fiction”: “The shares [that Khaidarov claimed] were ours, we returned them, and the 20% of the mining and processing complex that he himself bought remained with him, he then sold them to Evraz.”

The “brotherly war” between Mikhail Cherny and the TWG of Lev Cherny and Rubenov was in full swing at the end of the 1990s, when “Sibneft shareholders” - Abramovich, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili - appeared on the scene and, unexpectedly for everyone, bought TWG’s shares in aluminum smelters. Confusion arose in the enemy camp. Makhmudov longed to continue the war, Chernoy hesitated. Deripaska, who was beginning a romantic relationship with Valentin Yumashev’s daughter Polina, was promised that a common business with Roman Abramovich (they are close friends with Yumashev) would take him to a qualitatively new level. He persuaded everyone to agree to peace. Chernoy agreed to a deal in the form of the formation of a new, unified company, Rusal.

A representative of the “war party,” Makhmudov remained on the sidelines, which did not prevent him from maintaining business relations with Cherny for several more years. At that time, in the copper and coal business, Makhmudov was no longer a junior, but an equal partner of Mikhail.

At the turn of the 2000s, Makhmudov and Cherney resemble predators who stopped before jumping at the very last moment. They started several wars at once: they just ousted Mikhail Zhivilo from the country, taking over most of his assets, entered Nizhnevartovskneftegaz (a subsidiary of TNK), removing all mining assets from it under the nose of Alpha, bought 30% of Magnitogorsk "and were preparing to fight Viktor Rashnikov.

And suddenly, in just a couple of years, everything changes: Zhivilo’s assets were sold to Evraz, oil assets to Alfa, the war with Rashnikov never began. Perhaps the fact is that the government changed in the country and Chernoy decided not to take risks. In addition, he already had large projects outside of Russia - in Israel, Bulgaria, and other countries - he needed money. In 2001, he agreed to sell a stake in Rusal to Deripaska - out of old habit, writing the agreement on a piece of paper, which later resulted in a multi-year legal battle.

In 2002, Chernoy decided to sell his stake in Kuzbassrazrezugol: Filaret Galchev approached him with such an offer, which Sberbank was ready to finance. Having learned about this, says an acquaintance of Makhmudov, Iskander made a counter-offer: to buy out Cherny’s share in all joint assets. After thinking, he agreed. How much Chernoy received for them is unknown, but one of Mikhail’s acquaintances claims that in 2001–2002, Deripaska and Makhmudov paid him a total of more than $2 billion, most of which they borrowed from banks. To date, due to unsuccessful foreign investments, Chernoy has lost almost everything, his friends say.

In 2002, Chernoy received the money, and Makhmudov became the main owner of the copper holding UMMC and Kuzbassrazrezugol. In both, he already had junior partners - Kozitsyn and Bokarev, to whom the new owner entrusted management. Cherney left the business at the wrong time; literally a year later, sharp growth began: copper over the next four years rose in price by about five times, coking coal - almost three times. There was enough money to repay loans to buy out Cherny’s share, and for new investments - they gave Makhmudov a completely different result. According to Forbes, Makhmudov entered the list of the richest Russian businessmen, first published in 2004, with a fortune of $2.1 billion.

Moscow businessman Pyotr Baum was extremely dissatisfied with the meeting with a representative of the group of “invaders”. A defiantly self-confident young man offered only $6 million for the Bryansk Machine-Building Plant, which produces 65% of shunting diesel locomotives in Russia, saying that the plant was virtually bankrupt. Baum, who bought the plant in 2000 for $8 million in anticipation of future growth in orders, was ready to part with it for only $15 million. He was denied that amount. Baum did not know that he was faced with Makhmudov’s well-oiled machine for collecting assets - it was he who was represented at that meeting by Dmitry Komissarov, who was responsible for the project of creating a machine-building holding. Before Baum had time to look back, the opponents bought up part of the debts of the Bryansk plant, initiated external management, and by 2003 transferred its assets to the new company Transmashholding (TMH). The operation to seize control of a plant with revenue of $50 million a year cost several hundred thousand dollars. Baum tried to sue, but was unsuccessful. He now refuses to comment.

Komissarov, the former head and co-owner of Transmashholding, also does not want to remember this story. Now he is a serious gentleman with a respectable position in a state company - a member of the board of directors of Russian Railways. “I don’t want to discuss the previous owner, but under him the amount of debt was three to four times higher than the volume of production, and capacity utilization was 12–15%,” says Komissarov. Komissarov became interested in mechanical engineering in 2000; before that he worked in commercial structures not associated with Russian Railways. According to him, by the 2000s the era of mutual offsets was ending, railway transport had not been updated for a long time and it was clear that orders and money would soon go to rolling stock manufacturers, who had been living on the brink of bankruptcy for many years. One of Komissarov’s friends said that his “very serious” acquaintances were thinking about the same thing, and soon brought Komissarov together with Makhmudov and Bokarev.

Makhmudov has been in constant contact with railway workers since the early 1990s. His joint companies with Cherny were their largest clients and constantly argued with Russian Railways over tariffs. “The plan was simple,” says one of Makhmudov’s partners. “We didn’t like the monopoly position of the railroad, when the entire business depends on what prices they set. The idea was to create a company that would have a monopoly influence on Russian Railways.” Makhmudov and Bokarev already had a joint company with Estonian businessmen Sergei Glinka and Maxim Liksutov, Transgroup, a railway operator engaged in the delivery and transshipment of coal from Kuzbass to the port of Tallinn. Together the partners began to build Transmashholding.

In 2003, a year after its creation, the holding bought up the debts of the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant (NEVZ) from the MDM group and became the owner of this monopoly manufacturer of electric freight locomotives. Then - controlling stakes in the Tver Carriage Works (cars), and a year later - in the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant (electric trains).

The emergence of new players did not go unnoticed. The then Minister of Railways Gennady Fadeev was categorically against the creation of a private monopoly on the production of rolling stock and put a spoke in the wheels of new contractors. Sometimes they didn’t pay Transmashholding for six months, recalls Makhmudov’s partner.

Unexpectedly, Makhmudov and his partners found an understanding with Fadeev’s first deputy, Vladimir Yakunin, who had a difficult relationship with the minister. “Yakunin also didn’t really want us to consolidate the industry, he said that he didn’t want all the eggs to be in one basket,” says Forbes’ source. But after long conversations, Yakunin was finally convinced. At the end of 2003, Russian Railways signed a partnership agreement with Transmashholding until 2010, providing for the purchase of locomotives and the development of new equipment. As a result, NEVZ, which produced 20 locomotives in 2002, produced 55 a year later, 114 the following year, and 217 mainline and industrial electric locomotives in 2012. Why did Yakunin support Makhmudov?

“They came to me with problems of the Novocherkassk plant. You need to understand what kind of enterprise it was 10 years ago - a destroyed production that practically ceased to exist. Thanks to this [the contract with Transmashholding], we managed to preserve heavy transport engineering in our country,” judging by Yakunin’s answer to Forbes’ question, he has no doubt that he is right.

By 2006, Transmashholding included about a dozen machine-building enterprises. In March 2006, Komissarov already had to answer questions from the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The officials did not find fault with the businessmen and within two months they granted Transmashholding’s request to consolidate the machine-building plants that it managed. And in December 2007, Yakunin signed a deal to purchase Russian Railways 25% + 1 share of this holding for 9.3 billion rubles.

Why was it necessary to sell the share? “We didn’t want to be persuaded to join Russian Railways - we are like this and that. We suggested [to Yakunin]: buy 25% - and you will always see what is happening inside. And we will invest the money in the company,” says Makhmudov’s partner. The presence of Russian Railways among the shareholders of Transmashholding has added weight to the company in the eyes of Western investors, Yakunin is convinced. In March 2009, the French concern Alstom agreed to buy 25% + 1 share of Transmashholding, the transaction amounted to $422 million.

Now Yakunin calls Transmashholding “our subsidiary.” Makhmudov can also call him the same: he controls 22% of the company, and with partners - a little less than 50%. They managed to create a “monopoly for a monopoly” almost without fighting; in the mid-2000s, the half-dead machine-building plants were of little interest to anyone. But by the end of the 2000s, these factories allowed the hero of the turbulent 1990s to take Moscow without a fight.

On March 28, 2011, after passing through the turnstiles at Sheremetyevo Airport, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Transport Minister Igor Levitin and the head of Russian Railways Yakunin, entered the Aeroexpress business class cabin. For almost the entire 45-minute trip to Moscow, Yakunin told Putin about plans for the development of high-speed rail connections between Moscow and the airports of the Moscow air hub. Putin liked the plans, Aeroexpress, and its general director Maxim Liksutov, Makhmudov’s partner in TMH, Transgroup and Aeroexpress.

A month later, Liksutov was appointed adviser to the mayor of Moscow on transport, and soon deputy mayor and chief curator of the transport development program in the capital with a budget of 2.2 trillion rubles. He is in charge of updating the metro fleet, creating high-speed tram lines and a project for organizing passenger traffic along the Small Ring of the Moscow Railway. Who will purchase rolling stock from for these programs? Everything will be within the law and through open tenders, says the Moscow government.

The first tender was supposed to take place in July 2012, but the antimonopoly service canceled it: competitors, Uralvagonzavod and Sinara, stated that the tender documentation was drawn up under the model of Alstom and Transmashholding. In December, this contract for 8.46 billion rubles was won by the state-owned Uralvagonzavod. “They have placed their people in key positions, but this does not mean that they will always be influential,” says the top manager of Uralvagonzavod, which has recently been beloved by Putin. “Today they are in these chairs, tomorrow they are not.”

But Makhmudov’s plan is not limited to the supply of equipment. In June 2011, OJSC "MKR" was registered, a joint company between Russian Railways and the Moscow City Hall for the development of the small railway ring of Moscow. The volume of investment in the project was estimated at 100–150 billion rubles. It was headed by Mikhail Khromov, who had held senior positions at Transmashholding since 2003. He is also the general director of the Central Suburban Passenger Company, 25% of the shares of which are owned by the governments of Moscow and the Moscow region, and the rest by the structures of Makhmudov, Bokarev, Glinka and Komissarov. The share of the Central PPK in suburban passenger transportation in the Moscow region exceeds 80%, in Russia – 56%.

Why does Makhmudov need passenger transportation, which Russian Railways always calls unprofitable? At the end of 2011, the Central PPK received 5 billion rubles in net profit, Khromov answers a question from Forbes. No less is expected based on the results of 2012, when the company transported 568 million people.

“Everyone thought that you wouldn’t earn much in a subsidized business,” says one of Makhmudov’s partners. “But when we got to the numbers, everyone’s eyes lit up: 500 million people a year pass through, plus the small ring - another 200-250 million. And this is trade, catering, payment systems, etc., etc.!”

The Moscow authorities plan to spend 55 billion rubles on the creation of railway infrastructure and attract 15 billion rubles of private investment for the construction of 31 interchange hubs. The Central PPK has everything to comply with and win the competition for the construction of transfer hubs, Khromov is convinced. If it wins, it will purchase rolling stock for the Moscow Ring Railway. Who? “What other options are there?” – one of Makhmudov’s partners answers, laughing. What about the conflict of interest? Khromov replies that while the implementation of the Moscow Ring Railway project has not begun, there is no conflict. “When it arises, I will resolve these issues,” he concludes evasively.

A veteran of the 1990s, Makhmudov integrated into new realities. Now he has new, “correct” partners, such as Yakunin at Transmashholding. For example, in 2012, Makhmudov and Bokarev bought 13% of the railway operator Transoil, controlled by Gennady Timchenko. And 7.5% of the shares of Kuzbassrazrezugol belong to Vitaly Yusufov, sources close to both sides of the deal told Forbes.

Why does he need new partners? An acquaintance of Makhmudov, hearing this question, laughed: “Don’t you understand?” From “old friends” from the 1990s, Makhmudov learned well the lesson of Chernykh: no “conceptual” agreements, everything is official and everyone, even the youngest partners, have legally registered shares.

The legal proceedings between Deripaska and Cherny and Abramovich and Berezovsky were replete with vivid details. Who has heard about the disputes between Cherny and Makhmudov? But the settlement agreement with Cherny at the end of last year was signed by Deripaska and Makhmudov at the same time. According to Forbes, Deripaska paid his former partner $200 million, Makhmudov – $150 million. Typically, Makhmudov was a mediator in the negotiations.

What will happen now that the results of the wars of the 1990s are closed by the latest “peace treaty”? “Makhmudov and IPO? Come on, this will never happen, he’s not that kind of person,” an acquaintance of the businessman assured Forbes several years ago. But Makhmudov’s partners say that at least two companies – UMMC and Kuzbassrazrezugol – will be merged into a holding, in which each of Iskander’s junior partners will receive shares. At the turn of 2015–2016, we may be talking about selling part of the business, says a Forbes interlocutor surrounded by Makhmudov. It is already worth more than $10 billion.

Makhmudov Iskandar Kakhramonovich

Parents are, according to some sources, university teachers; according to other sources, the father is a civil engineer, the mother is a teacher of the Russian language. Married twice. The name of the first wife is unknown (according to unconfirmed reports, she was born into a family of Bukharian Jews). There is a son from his first marriage. The second wife is Makhmudova Margarita Ildusovna.

In 1984 he graduated from the Arabic department of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Tashkent State University. I did not serve in the army thanks to the military department at the university.

In 1991-1994. - Marketing Director of JSC "Alice".

In 1994, he participated in the privatization of the Pavlodar aluminum smelter in Kazakhstan together with Cherny. Working with the Chernys, Makhmudov holds formal positions in the Trans World Group company they own (for example, advisor to the representative for Russia and the CIS or consultant to the general director). In addition, Makhmudov acted as the head of Chernykh’s company “Blond investment corp”.

In 1994-1996 - Director of JSC Industrial and Financial Company Meta-Service (Moscow).

According to available data, AOZT PFC Meta-Service was affiliated with the union of enterprises Transexpo (Voluntary Union for the Promotion of Transport, Ecology, Culture and Resolution of Social Problems). The head of the Transexpo union was Sergei Petrovich Alpatkin, who was twice convicted. Also affiliated with this person was Transexpobank, whose chairman of the board was Andrey Removich Bokarev, Makhmudov’s future partner. In the 2000s, it became known that Bokarev A.R., together with Makhmudov, own a controlling stake in OJSC Kuzbassrazrezugol, as well as OJSC UMMC.

In 1994, a car belonging to Transexpobank was blown up in Moscow. An examination of the remains established that in the car was one of the leaders of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group, Sergei Timofeev (nicknamed Sylvester). Timofeev is one of the most famous leaders of the Orekhovskaya gang. With his rise in 1993, the organized crime group began a qualitatively new stage in its activities related to the legalization of capital. There is information on the Internet that in 1993, with the assistance of Sylvester, an agreement was reached between the Orekhovsk and Sverdlovsk authorities,” as a result of which the East Line company, headed by Dmitry Vladimirovich Kamenshchik, a relative of a high-ranking Sverdlovsk policeman, allegedly “protecting” The Uralmash organized crime group (the largest organized crime group in the Sverdlovsk region) received a lease from the Moscow Domodedovo airport (one of the largest airports in the country, located in the zone of influence of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group). In return, the Orekhovites got the opportunity to participate in the privatization of Ural metallurgical plants.

In 1995-1996 – Makhmudov was listed as a security guard at the Medox company. This company was affiliated with the company of the Cherny brothers “Siberian Aluminum”. The position of a security guard gave Makhmudov the right to carry weapons. In 1996, the Medox company was headed by Yuri Evgenievich Zaostrovtsev, who, before leaving for commercial structures (1993), oversaw the State Customs Committee in the economic counterintelligence department of the FSK (heir to the KGB), returned to government service in 1998 and soon took the position of first deputy director of the FSB (renamed FSK), which oversees the economic direction.

Also, until 1996, Makhmudov was a member of the board of directors of Sayany Bank (Republic of Khakassia). The main shareholder of the bank was the Sayan Aluminum Plant - one of the first enterprises of the aluminum complex that came under the control of the Cherny brothers. The main lobbyist for the interests of the Blacks in Khakassia was Arkady Sargsyan, the first deputy chairman of the government of the Republic of Khakassia, Alexei Lebed. Makhmudov's connection with the Armenian diaspora in Russia is likely to be of great importance. The above-mentioned Transexpo union acted as the founder of the Armenian Bulletin newsletter and Alpatkin’s successor as head of Transexpo was an Armenian by nationality, Artur Vladimirovich Tatevosyan (according to information from the Internet, an active member of the Dolgoprudnenskaya organized crime group - Moscow).

Among Makhmudov’s criminal connections during this period of time, it should be noted his connection with the Izmailovskaya organized crime group (Moscow) and the Uralmash organized crime group (Sverdlovsk region).

According to information from the Internet, the Izmailovskaya organized crime group stood out among other Moscow organized crime groups due to its emphasized hostility towards the “Caucasian authorities” (Chechen and Azerbaijani). There is a version that in the early 90s, after the collapse of the USSR, state security agencies initiated the release of many “Slavic authorities” from prison precisely to fight the insolent “Chechen mafia.” The leader of the Izmailovskys, Anton Malevsky, is named as one of the authorities who was allegedly supervised by the state security agencies. In this regard, it should be noted that Armenians traditionally conflict with Azerbaijanis, both at the Armenia-Azerbaijan state level and at the diaspora level. Also included in the Izmailovskaya organized crime group is Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov (“Taiwanchik”), a native of Uzbekistan, one of the “authorities” coordinating the activities of Russian organized crime groups in Europe.

However, taking into account the data that in the Sverdlovsk region the Blacks probably interacted closely with one of the prominent figures of the Azerbaijani diaspora, Asadulla Murtuz Ogly Kuliyev, the question of Makhmudov’s “national preferences” no longer looks so clear. It is also possible that Makhmudov does not have any national preferences at all.

In Makhmudov’s native Uzbekistan, one of the most authoritative criminal leaders is Salim Abduvaliev (“Salim”), who is suspected of organizing drug deliveries from Central Asia through Russia to Europe. Information was published on the Internet that “Salim” is closely connected with Makhmudov, to the point that Makhmudov allegedly acts in the interests of “Salim”.

One of the most important drug trafficking points from Central Asia to Europe is the Urals. Makhmudov has key positions in this region. The largest copper enterprise in the Sverdlovsk region is the Uralelectromed plant. After the collapse of the USSR, the plant fell into a deplorable state, partly due to the general economic decline in the country, and partly due to the active activities of the Ural organized crime groups, which squeezed the last funds out of the plant. The situation changed when the Cherny brothers came to the plant with a proposal to organize work using tolling schemes. In alliance with the Uralmash organized crime group, Cherny and Makhmudov appointed Andrei Anatolyevich Kozitsyn to the position of general director of the plant in 1994, having endured a difficult struggle with the Center organized crime group, during which many authorities on both sides died. At the same time, the final truce was achieved not so much as a result of a forceful decision, but through an agreement on the division of spheres of influence. According to some data, the Uralmash organized crime group is “watching” the plant in the interests of Makhmudov- Black was Crook Alexander Vasilievich (main areas of interest - metals and timber, found dead in 2000). At the same time, Kruk’s right hand was Sergei Maizel, who in the first half of the 1990s worked closely with the leaders of the “centers”.

In the second half of the 90s, Uralmash began to legalize its capital and organized the Uralmash socio-political union, beginning to actively participate in political events in the region. Since the early 2000s, the leader of the Uralmash organized crime group, Alexander Khabarov, has been promoting the implementation of the public project “Drug-Free City” Foundation, which was initially organized in 1998 by UMMC PR man Vladimir Beloglazov as a political project. The Foundation declared the goals of combating drug addiction in Yekaterinburg. Some sources claim that the head of the foundation, Evgeniy Vadimovich Roizman, is connected with persons supplying drugs from Central Asia to the European part of Russia through the Ural region. However, law enforcement agencies did not initiate cases against Roizman under the relevant articles of the criminal code. Roizman himself claims that such accusations are the work of the drug mafia, which wants to discredit his name. There is also an opinion that Roizman’s alleged connections with the drug mafia are covered up by someone in law enforcement agencies or intelligence services, who are the main organizers of drug deliveries.

It should be noted that at the turn of the 90s and 2000s, during the struggle for the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant and the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (NTMK), the interests of Makhmudov and his partners diverged from the interests of the Uralmash organized crime group, which resulted in a conflict at the level of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Valery Kraev, the head of the Sverdlovsk Region Central Internal Affairs Directorate, who was considered a “lobbyist” of the Uralmash organized crime group in law enforcement agencies, was forced to resign. But his opponents from the department for combating organized crime (Leonid Fesko) also lost their positions. Almost all of them went to work in the security service of NTMK, which, with the support of Makhmudov, went to a friendly structure - the Evraz Group company, and the Kachkanarsky Mining and Processing Plant, for which UMMC “fought” with its own rebellious manager Jalol Khaidarov, also went to it. Khaidarov ultimately fled to the United States, where he named Makhmudov as a member of a criminal group, which besides him included the Cherny brothers, Oleg Deripaska, Anton Malevsky (Izmailovo organized crime group), Evraz group and MDM group.

In 1996-1998 Makhmudov is the general director of the Gaisky mining and processing plant (Orenburg region).

1999 – Deputy General Director for Development of Siberian Aluminum Group LLC.

Since 1999 - President of OJSC "Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company" (UMMC), formed on the basis of the Uralelectromed plant. The holding itself was formed in 1998, when it included a number of mining and processing copper assets. Officially registered in 1999. The UMMC company employs two relatives of Makhmudov, who permanently reside in the Sverdlovsk region: Makhmudov Shukhrat Khamraevich and Makhmudov Alim Khamraevich. Both hold senior positions at UMMC and, in all likelihood, look after Iskandar Makhmudov’s interests in the company.

In the second half of the 1990s, a conflict began between Makhmudov’s “godfathers”, the Cherny brothers, in which Makhmudov took the side of Mikhail Cherny. According to Forbes, initially Makhmudov owned UMMC together with Mikhail Cherny, but in 2002 Mikhail sold his share to Makhmudov, leaving the copper business.

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Iskander Makhmudov was born on December 5, 1963. in Bukhara. He spent his childhood and youth in Tashkent. My mother taught a foreign language at a university. My father worked as a builder.

After graduating from college, Iskander Makhmudov went to work in Libya and then to Iraq. In Libya, he worked in an organization called the Main Engineering Directorate. In Iraq - in one of the Soviet departments that was involved in construction.

The Main Construction Directorate was subordinate to the USSR State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations and in practice was engaged in the supply of weapons abroad and the training of military specialists from friendly countries. Among other things, the Directorate was involved in the construction of strategic defense facilities in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Makhmudov sold Russian metal to foreign countries for several years, without making any “sudden movements” and without attracting attention to his activities. Working in this market allowed him to acquire extensive connections both at the level of businessmen and at the level of regional and federal officials.

From 1991 to June 1994, he was Deputy Director of Marketing at Alice JSC. From July 1994 to February 1996 - Director of the JSC Industrial and Financial Company Meta Service.

In 1996, Makhmudov became the general director of the Gaisky mining and processing plant, the leading copper ore mining enterprise in the Urals.

In 1999, together with his partners, he created the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), of which he has been president since its founding until now.

In 2001, he was a member of the Board of Directors of OJSC Uralelectromed (Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region).

He was a member of the Board of Directors of JSCB Sayany.

The Makhmudov empire includes seven large enterprises of the metallurgical industry of the Middle Urals. Among them are Uralelectromed, Kachkanarsky GOK Vanadium and Sredneuralsky Copper Smelter. At the same time, 78% of the shares of UMMC itself belong to companies located in offshore zones, and actually work for foreign capital.

Iskander Makhmudov alone controls the production of almost half of Russian copper, two-thirds of zinc production and a quarter of rolled non-ferrous metals. The holding he owns is the world's eighth largest manufacturer of carriages and diesel locomotives. The Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), of which Makhmudov is the permanent president, includes dozens of enterprises located in 30 regions of Russia: from the Far East to Vladimir.

Makhmudov is married for the second time. Makhmudov broke up with his former wife even before moving to Moscow, but, according to some sources, he devotes a lot of time to his son from his first marriage.
Sources: www.svdevelopment.com, www.lobbying.ru

Dossier:

In 2000, Makhmudov’s name was associated with a loud scandal that erupted around the Kachkanarsky GOK “Vanadium”. In 1999, Makhmudov entrusted the management of the enterprise to his childhood friend Jalol Khaidarov. But soon Makhmudov did not like the fact that Khaidarov himself wanted to become the owner of the enterprise. Makhmudov believed that Khaidarov had appropriated 72% of the shares of the mining and processing plant, and initiated a lawsuit, during which the rights of the legal shareholders were recognized. Khaidarov did not agree with this; in response, Makhmudov arrived at the enterprise along with bailiffs. Khaidarov set up a crowd of workers and pensioners against him, who were convinced in advance that Makhmudov was going to ruin and close the enterprise. Makhmudov dispersed the crowd with water cannons in twenty-degree frost. Footage of the incident spread throughout the media, causing real shock. After using water cannons, the bailiffs entered the enterprise, and it became the property of Makhmudov.
Source: www.svdevelopment.com, 2000

Khaidarov, removed from the post of general director of the mining and processing plant, went abroad, and there he joined forces with another ex-tycoon, Mikhail Zhivilo - he was suing the owners of Rusal in the United States for the Novokuznetsk aluminum smelter. They filed a combined $3 billion lawsuit under the Racketeering and Corrupt Practices Act, which includes triple payouts to victims, in New York federal court in 2001. But in 2003, the court refused to hear it.

In 2004, Khaidarov filed a new lawsuit in an American court against Makhmudov. This time the amount in the claim was two times less. The new lawsuit did not affect Makhmudov’s business in any way.
Source: "Vedomosti" from 09.11.2004

Literally a few days after the seizure of the Kachkanarsky mining and processing plant, Makhmudov seized power at the Nizhnesadinsky metallurgical plant. The attackers were led by Andrei Kozitsyn, appointed by Makhmudov as the new general director of the Kachkanarsky GOK. The scheme of the operation was very similar to the seizure of the mining and processing plant. While the general director of the enterprise, Damir Gareev, and his five deputies were locked in an office without telephone communication, the invaders took away the documents and seals of the enterprise. Workers who tried to enter the territory of the enterprise were again doused with water. Gareev was forced to leave the plant.
Source: “Kommersant” No. 15 (1900) dated 02/02/2000

The Karabashmed enterprise also became a means of struggle for power for Makhmudov. Makhmudov’s goal was to stop the creation of a single “copper” holding in Russia on the basis of the Kyshtym Copper Electrolyte Plant (KMZ). Karabashmed and a number of other enterprises were supposed to unite around it. The initiators of the project were the head of Bashkiria Murtaza Rakhimov and the Chelyabinsk governor Pyotr Sumin. Thus, Makhmudov could have strong competitors. A number of UMMC companies supplied raw materials to KMZ enterprises, and Makhmudov decided to cut them.

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