Viktor Pinchuk
Viktor Mychajlowytsch Pinschuk ( Ukrainian Віктор Миха́йлович Пінчук ; Russian Виктор Михайлович Пинчук ; born December 14, 1960 in Kiev ) is a Ukrainian multimillionaire man of the Ukraine (back ) Achmetovian and oligarch .
biography
Pinchuk was born in Kiev and graduated from the Metallurgical Institute in Dnepropetrovsk with an engineering degree, which he finished in 1983. In the 1990s, Pinchuk was part of the post-Soviet nomenklatura . Initially, Pinchuk was involved in the metal industry; as an engineer, he had been developing techniques since the 1980s that made pipes cheaper. In 1990 he founded the Interpipe company and earned money from its patents. He became wealthy from 2002 when he married Olena, daughter of the second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma , for the second time . In 2004 his father-in-law privatized the largest Ukrainian steel complex, Kryvorish Valley , for only $ 800 million, one sixth of its real value , and sold it to Interpipe . This gave Interpipe a monopoly on the manufacture of pipelines and steel pipelines and supplied to large energy companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft . From 2004, Pinchuk appeared in the lists of the richest people of Ukraine. He coordinated his interests with the private financial group of the oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi . Julia Tymoshenko and Serhiy Tihipko (2002–2004 President of the National Bank of Ukraine ) temporarily joined this group.
From 1998 to 2006 Pinchuk was a member of the Ukrainian parliament . In January 2005, at the end of Kuchma's term of office, the oligarchic groups had emancipated themselves from their respective regions by means of takeovers and mergers and had won key political positions in Kiev: the leadership of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Energy, the Central Bank, the National Security and Defense Council and the Customs authority, but also chairing important parliamentary committees. Since 2006, Pinchuk has largely withdrawn from politics and has built strong networks in the West, in the USA and in France. He campaigned for rapid EU accession and sponsored the “ Ukrainian Lunch ” at the Davos World Economic Forum .
In 2006, Pinschuk bundled around 20 companies controlled by him to form the Eastone Group . In addition to the tube and metal industry, the London-based group focuses on the investment and real estate sectors. It also owns a number of Ukrainian television stations and publishing houses. The Eastone Group is an international investment advisory firm that provides multinational corporations with all the tools to penetrate the Eastern economy. At the same time, he became the owner of four television channels and a popular Fact and Commentary tabloid with a circulation of over 1 million. Pinschuk also bundled his charitable activities in 2006 and established his foundation "Viktor Pinschuk Foundation" ( Pinchuk Fund ). The foundation spends around $ 10 million annually on projects and worked with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation . His wife founded the Elena Franchuk Foundation , the only privately financed anti-AIDS foundation in Ukraine. In June 2006 the British singer Elton John gave an anti-AIDS concert on the Majdan , to which almost as many people came as to the casseroles during the Orange Revolution . Pinchuk also financed the Open Society Foundation of George Soros , who supported the civil protest of 2004. Pinchuk founded the Kyiv School of Economics, a private business university .
From 2004, Pinchuk developed into the figurehead of a western-turned Ukrainian elite. During the Orange Revolution , like his counterpart Rinat Akhmetov , he had long supported the Party of Regions and its top candidate Viktor Yanukovych , afterwards he began to pursue his own foreign policy for his extended business interests to the west. To get closer to the EU, he launched the Yalta European Strategy ( YES ) in 2004 . Every year he invited economic and political elites to a conference in the summer palace of the last tsar in Crimea in Yalta in order to advance Ukraine's rapprochement with the EU. Guests included Bill and Hillary Clinton , Tony Blair , Larry Summers , Bill Gates and Richard Branson , among others . Henry Kissinger , Steven Spielberg and the Obamas were also friends .
In 2006 he opened the private museum Pinchuk Art Center in Kiev , which is considered the most important museum of modern art in Ukraine. Björn Geldhof has been the director of this museum since 2015. Pinschuk, who is of Jewish origin, produced the documentary Spell Your Name (Ukrainian: Назви своє ім'я) together with Steven Spielberg in 2006 in which Ukrainian Holocaust survivors and other contemporary witnesses report on their experiences.
Pinchuk secured his influence on international politics through payments into the global foundation system. As a link to the European political class, the Tony Blair Foundation appeared to be a suitable choice. From 2006 onwards, Pinchuk gained access to the highly sought after Washington scene, but also to the highly competitive steel market in the USA, through donations of millions to the Clinton Foundation . Between 2009 and 2013, including during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State of the United States , the Clinton Foundation received at least $ 8.6 million from his foundation. He achieved a special coup through donations to the Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute for International Economics , on whose board he also sits.
In November 2009, Pinchuk publicly declared himself the owner of six television channels - ICTV , STB , Novyj Kanal, M1, M2 and QTV - for the first time , and his wife announced the establishment of the media holding "Star Light Media".
Pinchuk funded several policy projects. He supported the protests on the Maidan in the winter of 2013/2014 with large sums of money, wrote a public letter against the government of the time and spoke out in favor of a pro-European course. In 2014 it was Petro Poroshenko , the candidate of the Pinchuk clan, who pleaded for Ukraine to join the EU and NATO . With its victory, the rival Akhmetov clan from Donetsk , which was behind the Party of Regions, i.e. behind Yanukovych, was put on the defensive. Pinchuk is an honorary citizen of the city of Kiev.
He has joined The Giving Pledge charity .
Web links
- Pinchuk's biography on the pinchukfund.org website
- Pinchuk Art Center website
- Yalta European Strategy website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nina Jeglinski: The Oligarch as Philanthropist , Jüdische Allgemeine, March 12, 2015
- ↑ Klaus Müller: The Clans of Ukraine. Power relations in a democracy that never existed , Le Monde diplomatique No. 10534 of October 10, 2014
- ↑ Viktor Pinchuk - Saul a. D. ( Memento from September 6, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) August 23, 2007
- ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Politik im Spiegel ), accessed March 29, 2014
- ↑ http://antiaids.org/en
- ↑ A small victory thanks to Elton John , FAZ from June 19, 2007
- ↑ Eva Karcher: In the garden of the oligarch. In: welt.de . August 28, 2011, accessed October 7, 2018 .
- ↑ Steven Spielberg's Return to an ungodly land
- ↑ http://spellyourname.org/eng/main.php
- ↑ http://www.economist.com/node/8086872
- ↑ Amy Chozick: Trade Dispute centers on Ukrainian Executive With Ties to Clinton's New York Times, February 12, 2014
- ↑ http://ukraine-nachrichten.de/ukraine-bekommen-neue-medienholding_1962_wirtschaft
- ↑ Nina Jeglinski: The Oligarch as Philanthropist , Jüdische Allgemeine, March 12, 2015
- ↑ The oligarch as a philanthropist - Viktor Pinchuk supports reforms, Jüdische Allgemeine dated March 12, 2015 , accessed on March 29, 2015
- ↑ Honorary Citizen of the City of Kiev on the official website of Kiev , accessed on June 28, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pinchuk, Viktor |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pinchuk, Viktor Mychajlowytsch (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Ukrainian entrepreneur and patron |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 14, 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kiev , Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |