Arkady Rothenberg: biography, personal life

Arkady Rotenberg (born December 15, 1951 in Leningrad) is a Russian businessman of Jewish origin and an oligarch. He owns together with his brother Boris "SGM-groups" ("Stroygazmontazh") - the largest company specializing in the construction of gas pipelines and electric lines in Russia. Was included by Forbes magazine in the list of the richest people in the world in 2014, took 621st place. It is considered a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin.

What is known about the childhood years of our hero?

How did Arkady Rothenberg begin his life? His biography, especially the origin, information about his parents - is a mystery behind seven seals. Neither Arkady himself nor his brother Boris ever talk about his childhood. The only thing that is known reliably is that Arkasha grew up as a sports boy, at first practiced acrobatics, and at the age of 12 came to the judo section. Shortly thereafter, Vova Putin, who was a year younger, also started walking there. According to coach Anatoly Rakhlin, both boys were puny, so they performed in the same weight category and often trained in pairs, although they were not permanent partners.

The words of Vladimir Putin are known about the influence of judo on him. The same can be said for our hero. But only for Arcadia, sport for many years has become not just a hobby, but a profession and even science.

Youth and gaps in biography

After school, Arkady Rotenberg did not hesitate in choosing a further life path - it could only be sport, more precisely, professional coaching. He entered the Leningrad Institute of Physical Education and in 1978 he successfully graduated. By the way, by the time he completed his studies, he was already 27 years old. So, there was a few years between the school and the institute, about which nothing is known either. Was Arkady Rotenberg in the army? His biography in this period is almost a continuous "white spot". It is known only that his eldest son Igor was born in 1970. Consequently, Arkadii Romanovich managed to get married between the graduation and the entrance to the Rothenberg Institute. But neither the name of his first wife, nor any information about her future fate we could not find.

Soviet coaching career

After graduating from the institute Rotenberg Arkady Romanovich began a long and stable period of work in various Leningrad sports organizations. Basically, he coached children, teaching them how to fight sambo and judo, was even the director of the Sports School. He took his work very seriously, as evidenced by the Ph.D. and doctoral dissertations.

At that time old friends left, and Vladimir Putin also left, who, having studied at the law faculty of Leningrad State University, served in the KGB and lived in Leningrad, then in Moscow, and from 1985 to 1990 in East Germany.

Communication with him resumed after Putin returned to Leningrad in 1990. He sought out an old friend and a sparring partner and asked him to resume joint training with the aim of acquiring the same sport form. Arkady Rotenberg gladly agreed, and they again began to converge in fights on the tatami.

Dashing 90s

By this period is the beginning of the business of our hero. About how this happened, tell different things. Some consider the beginning of his business career the so-called "protection" of commercial tents, which, given his sports experience in martial arts, looks quite plausible. The names of the leaders of the various OPGs with whom our hero allegedly drove his acquaintance are called. Let it be so, remember the time those who lived and survived in it, and who are too young - revise the film "Brother", for you a lot will clear up.

According to the same Rotenberg, said in an interview with the newspaper "Kommersant" in 2010, he began his entrepreneurial activity with the organization of competitions in martial arts. Remember the "zubodrobitelnye" American films of the 90's, in which in the arena, surrounded by excited to the limit spectators, not for life, but to the death battling applicants for the first prize of some fight club? Apparently, Rotenberg had something similar (and could it have been otherwise?).

Starting a serious business

Arkady Rotenberg has Boris's younger brother, who, following the example of the elder, also began to fight sambo and judo and achieved considerable success in them - the title of master of sports in both types of martial arts. In 1992, Boris received a very good coaching work on judo in Helsinki. Having looked there, he suggested to his brother to organize barter deliveries of various goods from Finland to Russia. Fortunately by the time Arkady had already started a lot of money on the business of fighting competitions.

Cooperation began with barter deliveries for various structures of Gazprom, engaged in the construction of gas pipelines. To secure them, JSC Baltic Business Partners was established, as well as Grant, Shield, Rotna.

A sharp turn in the life of a sportsman-businessman

Things went so well that businessman Arkady Rothenberg became famous in St. Petersburg as a man. He co-founded several large trade firms, founded international funds, and in 1998 organized the Yavara-Neva sports club, whose honorary chairman was Vladimir Putin, who, in August 1996, was actively pursuing a state treasurer in Moscow. By the way, according to Rotenberg himself, the idea of creating such a club belongs to Putin, and he just fulfilled the childhood friend's plan. Nevertheless, the most valuable plot of land was presented to the "executor of the idea" as on a silver platter. It is located on the island of Bull. But the very quality of the "execution of the plan" is beyond praise. By 2010, "Yavara-Neva" has already won six European championships, becoming the most titled club.

In general, many are inclined to blame Putin for alleged patronage on his part during the work of the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg (and in the future as well) the business initiatives of Arkady Rothenberg. However, the doubt is that the latter needed this. After all, he was like a fish in the water in the then semi-criminal (and often frankly criminal!) Business environment of the northern capital. But even if this is so, then a man who undertook to clear the new "Augean stables" into which his predecessor turned Russia can forgive much, if not all.

It's time for banks

One way or another, but by the beginning of the 2000s, the volume of Rothenberg's business transactions had become so large that it needed its own banking structure for their financial provision. In 2001, he joined the co-founders of Sevmorput Bank (SMP Bank), and later his brother Boris, who returned from Finland, joined the case. By 2002, the acquisition of Rothenberg's control over the MBTS-Bank also applies.

The banks controlled by the brothers had many clients from small and medium-sized businesses. Rumors about the allegedly instant arrival in the SMP Bank of money from Rosspirtprom are unreliable - the first operations with this structure date back to 2007. Among other large customers, we can call "Evrazholding".

Now SMP Bank operates in 40 Russian cities, having more than 100 branches. More than half of them are in Moscow and the region. SMP Bank oversees the operation of more than 900 ATMs. Therefore, this project Rotenberg can be considered quite successful. It continues to develop. So, in 2008, the bank "Investkapital" from Bashkiria became the property of the brothers.

The main cause of the Rotenbergs is the "pipe"

It so happened that the gas producer in Russia by the beginning of the 2000s was a monopoly, and the producers of pipes for gas pipelines and wells turned out to be a whole bunch, and all under different masters with their own understanding of life. To work with dozens of suppliers you need a huge supply staff. And no matter how many select honest people on their posts, someone from the other side will necessarily find a key to them and receive the so-called "improper benefit". And Dmitry Medvedev (then the head of Gazprom) then to sort out, to sack corrupt supplyers, in general, to waste precious life time.

In order to solve this problem once and for all, in the bowels of the presidential administration they decided to try this method: centralize the pipe products to Gazprom, but not within the framework of the state structure (this will be an economic "mauvais", a return to socialist methods!), Holding, where applications for all types of products from Gazprom will be sent, and which will fight with suppliers for prices, terms and quality of work. And to implement this idea was entrusted to Arkady Rothenberg.

So there were well-known companies "Pipe metal" and "Pipe industry", owned by the brothers Rotenberg. In addition, by 2010, they had gained full control over another trader - the Northern European Pipe Project, concentrating in their hands the entire sub-sector of pipe supply in the Russian market.

The next logical step is from the supply of pipes to the construction of gas pipelines

In general, everything in the world people want to work less and get more. Nor was the former Gazprom management headed by Dmitry Medvedev an exception to this rule. At that time, oil prices steadily grew, gas prices rushed up after them, and it seemed to everyone that "happiness will last forever". But the irascible picture was spoiled by the need to conduct continuous construction and repair of gas pipelines by the forces of Gazprom itself, within the framework of which several powerful territorial construction organizations such as Volgogaz, Lengazspetsstroy, Krasnodargazstroi and others were concentrated. And construction is a troublesome business, its terms are always broken, quality always claims, in supply, in general, "the devil's leg will break."

And then there was an interesting experience of the return to the supply of pipes to Rothenberg companies. Therefore, from the point of view of the Gazprom management, it was correct to "optimize" the further way of these pipes. Well, why on three or four times to transfer them to different owners and drive money back and forth: first from the manufacturer to the Rotenberg company, then to Gazprom itself, then from him to the construction company. And what if we entrust Rotenberg with the construction of the gas pipelines? No sooner said than done. In 2007, the company "Stroygazmontazh" was founded by Arkady Rotenberg, and in 2007-2008, It is transferred to the ownership (on the rights of redemption, of course, but how else!) The five largest construction companies from the structure of Gazprom. Since then, this company has been carrying out all the major orders of the organization, including the ground part of the "Nord Stream" or the gas pipeline to the Olympic Sochi. At the same time, other major contractors, such as Stroytransgaz Gennady Timchenko, were seriously pushed aside. But, unlike the latter, A. Rotenberg never fails the Russian state. When the company Timchenko refused to build a bridge to the Crimea, roughly speaking, it simply "drained the oil", then Stroygazmontazh took this most complicated order. Let us wish him success in this enormous importance of labor for the benefit of all of Russia.

Arkady Rothenberg: family, children, social activities

Above we have already noted the closed nature of this aspect of our hero's life. In general, let's ask ourselves, can such a person, like Arkady Rotenberg, be happy in his personal life? Children, wife, family, connected with these concepts home cosiness, settled, quiet rhythm of life - is it all for him? Of course not. A person who fully surrenders to his work, especially if it is of great importance not only for himself, but for the whole country, as a rule, is a very "uncomfortable" companion in life, often a bad father. And if he can with money and can independently organize for himself the necessary amenities, then write was gone, no woman with this one will get along. That's why the families of most Russian oligarchs broke up. For the same reasons, the current Russian president remained lonely in the declining years.

The ex-wife of Arkady Rotenberg, Natalia, with whom he was married from 2005 to 2013, is now prosecuting him for the compensation. They have two common children. As mentioned above, A. Rotenberg has Igor's son from his first marriage (according to other sources, he has five children).

Rotenberg is the president of the hockey club "Dynamo" in Moscow. In 2013 he became a member of the International Judo Federation Committee.

In the same year, Rothenberg became chairman of the publishing house "Enlightenment", which was once the largest supplier of textbooks in the Soviet Union.

As a result of the Crimean crisis of 2014, the federal government of the United States put on the "black list" the brothers Rotenberg and other close friends of the Russian president, including Sergei Ivanov and Gennady Timchenko.