Business oligarch

The term "business oligarch" is almost a synonym of the term "business magnate", borrowed by the English-speaking and western media from post-Soviet parlance to describe the huge, quickly acquired wealth of some businessmen of the Post-Soviet states (mostly Russia and Ukraine) during the privatization in Russia and in other post-Soviet states in the 1990s. For the history of business oligarchs in post-Soviet Union states see:

• Russian oligarchs
• Ukrainian oligarchs

A typical example of a post-Soviet oligarch entity is the Privat Group - a large Ukraine-based transnational business conglomerate comprising dozens of industrial companies in several markets, controlled by only three stakeholders, and not through the stock exchange.

More generally, an oligarch is an extremely rich and powerful person who is part of an élite which exercises an undemocratic, hidden form of power in order to serve its own interests.