Viktor Pinchuk

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Victor Mykhaylovych Pinchuk
Віктор Михáйлович Пінчýк
Viktor Myxajlovyč Pinčuk
Born December 14, 1960 (1960-12-14) (age 49)
Ukraine Kiev, Ukraine
Occupation Business oligarch
Spouse(s) Elena Arshava (div.)
Elena Leonidivna Franchuk
Children Mariya (1982), Katerina (2003)

Viktor Mykhaylovych Pinchuk (Ukrainian: Віктор Михáйлович Пінчýк Viktor Myxajlovyč Pinčuk), one of the "Business oligarchs" who control post-Communist Ukraine, is the son-in-law of the ex-President Leonid Kuchma. Poland's weekly Wprost ranked him Central and Eastern Europe's 12th richest man, with a fortune of $1.5 billion. The second richest Ukrainian businessman,[1] Pinchuk is the founder and main owner of the Interpipe Group, one of Ukraine's leading steel industry groups also working in other fields of economy. Pinchuk is the owner of four TV channels and most popular tabloid, Fakty i Kommentarii. He has been a member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for two consecutive convocations (member of Labour Ukraine[2]), but failed to be re-elected in 2006.

Pinchuk is one of the major political-industrial figures coming from the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (along with Pavlo Lazarenko, Yulia Tymoshenko and others. (The other influential regional groups are the "Donetsk Group associated with Eastern Ukraine, and the Surkis-Medvedchuk group based in Kiev). Pinchuk is in a permanent business conflict with the Privat Group also based in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

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[edit] Biography

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Born to jewish parents[1] who moved to the industrial town of Dnipropetrovsk after being denied the right to study in Kiev, Pinchuk started out as a metallurgy engineer specializing in the production of pipes. He says he "quickly became a relatively rich man for Soviet times", now owning the company where he got his first job back in Soviet times. Born in 1960 in Kiev, Victor Pinchuk graduates from the Metallurgy institute of Dniepropetrovsk in 1983, 7 years later he founds Interpipe Company on the basis of implementation of patented innovations, which were successfully adopted by leading metallurgical factories in the USSR. Presently, Interpipe Corporation operates as international investment fund and is one of the most successful domestic businesses Interpipe, whose customers include Gazprom and Rosneft, had sales of more than $1.6 billion last year, producing 4.3 percent of the world’s seamless pipes and 13 percent of its railway wheels. Victor Pinchuk opened an investment company, EastOne, in London.

Its portfolio includes industrial assets such as production of pipes and tubes, railcar wheels, specialty steels and alloys, machinery, as well as banking, media, airlines, real estate, and high tech companies. In 2004, Interpipe became the first Ukrainian company member of the World Economic Forum. Interpipe is very active in fight against HIV/AIDS at the workplace and in 2004 became the first Eastern European company member of the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS. Mr. Pinchuk served as a MP of the third (1998-2004) and fourth (2004-2006) convocation of Parliament. Now he abandoned politics since he believes Ukraine has reached a level of development when business and politics should be separated. For more than ten years Victor Pinchuk has been developing and supporting a number of philanthropic projects in Ukraine. In 2006, he consolidated these activities under the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is now considered the largest private Ukrainian philanthropic foundation. Its numerous projects include the creation of a network of modern neonatal centres throughout Ukraine, cooperation programs with the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the ANTIAIDS Foundation of his wife Elena Franchuk, the creation of the Kyiv School of Economics, a cooperation with the Aspen Institute, the opening of the first large scale contemporary art centre in Ukraine PinchukArtCentre, the creation and development of the only Ukrainian private chamber orchestra, the production and promotion of a film with Steven Spielberg on the Holocaust in Ukraine, human rights projects with George Soros and support of local Jewish communities. Mr. Pinchuk has long promoted closer ties between Ukraine and the EU. In 2004, he created the Yalta European Strategy (YES) - an international independent organization that is promoting Ukraine joining the European Union. Its annual summer meeting in Yalta has become the main high-level Ukraine-EU forum for debate and policy recommendations development. At the last summit in Yalta in July 2007, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Victor Yuschchenko and a lot figures from the forefront were present to discuss the accession of Ukraine in Europe.

Mr. Pinchuk serves as a member of the Board of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a member of the Board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a member of the International Advisory Council of Brookings Institution and a member of the Corporate Advisory Board of the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS.

[edit] Orange Revolution

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The Austrian public relations agency that Pinchuk retains, according to Ukrainian media, was also the source circulating reports, stated to emanate from the Rudolfinerhaus hospital and reported by Reuters, denying the dioxin poisoning of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

[edit] Personal life

Divorced from his first wife, he married Elena Franchuk, the daughter of ex-Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. Elena now runs the ANTIAIDS Foundation, which focuses on retroviral distribution and AIDs care in the Ukraine. A good friend of singer Elton John[citation needed] thanks to her charity work[citation needed] In February 2008 Elena Franchuk bought a house at 17 Upper Phillimore Gardens, London in her name on behalf of her and her husband; then the world's most expensive home for £80m.[3]

Pinchuk collects art and owns the Pinchuk Art Center in Kiev.[4]

In December 2009 Pinchuk announced a new $100,000 prize for artists under the age of 35. The Future Generation Art Prize will be given every two years and is open to any young artist who applies online. Though the jury has yet to be announced, in December 2009 Pinchuk stated that the jury could include Elton John, Eli Broad, Richard Armstrong, Glenn D. Lowry and/or Miuccia Prada. Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Andreas Gursky and Jeff Koons, artists whose work Pinchuk collects, would serve as mentors who will make themselves available to the finalists and the winner.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The richest of Ukraine's oligarchs is Rinat Akhmetov.
  2. ^ Ukraine Political Parties, GlobalSecurity.org
  3. ^ Ukrainian businesswoman buys world's most expensive home in London for £80m | the Daily Mail
  4. ^ a b New Prize to Honor Artists Under 35, The New York Times (December 7, 2009)

[edit] External links


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