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Vladimir Kim Kazakhstan (3)
As a descendent of Koreans forcibly relocated to Kazakhstan by Stalin, Vladimir Kim, the country’s fifth richest (Forbes, 2016) businessman, didn’t have any of the political connec- tions granted by birth or marriage that most ethnic Kazakh oligarchs rely on – he had to forge his own, writes Kanat Shaku.
Born in Almaty, Kim, 56, joined the Communist party and rose to the rank of deputy party chairman prior to Kazakh- stan’s 1991 declaration of independence. In 1991, amid the disarray of the coun- try’s transition to a market economy, Kim, like many senior communists, went into the private sector, becoming head of Korean chaebol Samsung’s new Kazakh- stan-based subsidiary. In the mid-to-late nineties, Kim went on to head the prede- cessor of the Kazakhmys metals mining company, ZhezkazganTsvetMet, after Samsung took it over.
ZhezkazganTsvetMet had smelted 200,000 tonnes of copper a year prior to the demise of the USSR, but the company came to a standstill in the first decade of the 21st century under the weight of $180mn in debt. Samsung provided a $200mn loan to eliminate the debt and, renamed Kazakhmys in 1997, the company achieved lift-off under Kim’s direction and repaid Samsung within three years. Kim was granted
a stake, the value of which eventually amounted to billions of dollars.
Kim’s leverage with President Nursultan Nazarbayev increased after another ethnic Korean, Vladimir Ni, an advisor and confi- dante of the president, joined the company board in 1999. The next year, Kim became board chairman, and with the company’s October 2005 listing on the London Stock Exchange, he was made chairman of the Kazakhmys PLC holding company. Less than a month after the death of Ni in 2010, Kim sold 11% of Kazakhmys to Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna in a billion-dollar transaction.
Kim stepped down as chairman of Kazakhmys PLC in May 2013 and
KAZAKHSTAN
1
Bulat Utemuratov $2.4bn
Finance, real estate
Utemuratov (58), who has ties to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, received an estimated $785mn in 2007 when Italy’s Uni- Credit acquired 92% of ATF Bank. He still owns ForteBank and Kasa Nova Bank stakes, and his asset management firm, Verny Capital, owns the Moscow and Vienna Ritz Carlton hotels, and is building the $300mn Talon Towers in Almaty, where it also plans to open a Ritz Carlton.
2
Alijan Ibragimov $1.9bn
Metals and mining
Uzbek native Ibragimov (62) is a co-founder of the Eurasian Natural Resources Company (ENRC). The London Stock Exchange delisted the metals and mining firm in 2013 after an accumulation of fraud investigations.
4
$4.4bn
Finance, mining, energy, construction
Dinara and Timur Kulibayev
Kulibayeva (49),President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter, along with her husband Timur Kulibayev (50), are Kazakhstan’s power couple. They own a majority stake in the second largest Kazakh bank Halyk Bank. Halyk is preparing
to acquire a controlling stake in struggling Kazkommertsbank, the largest bank. The couple also own Almex Holding Group. It has interests in banking, mining, construction and other areas.
KYRGYZSTAN
Name Net worth
Sector
1
Askar Salymbekov $1.5bn
Retail
Salymbekov (62) is president of the Dordoi As- sociation group of companies. It owns the Dordoi Bazaar retail and wholesale centre in Bishkek, as well as FC Dordoi. Dordoi Bazaar distributes consumer goods from China to markets and outlets in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
became a non-executive director.
In 2014, London-listed Kazakhmys decided to separate loss-making old assets from promising new ones. As
a result, KAZ Minerals was estab- lished to run profitable assets and Kazakhmys retained high-cost, mature
“The company achieved lift-off under Kim’s direction and repaid Samsung within three years”
assets. Following the restructuring, Kim also took a non-executive direc- tor position at KAZ Minerals PLC. Kim’s KAZ Minerals stake amounts to approximately 33%. Forbes gave Kim’s estimated net worth as $2.6bn, compared to $5.5bn in March 2007.
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