Victor Pinchuk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Victor Pinchuk (Ukrainian: Віктор Михáйлович Пінчýк, Viktor Mykhailovych Pinchuk; born 14 December 1960) is a Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist. As of January 2016, Forbes ranked him as 1250th on the list of wealthiest people in the world, with a fortune of $1.44 billion.[2]

Pinchuk is the founder and main owner of EastOne Group LLC, an international investing, project funding and financial advisory company based in London, and of Interpipe Group, one of Ukraine's leading pipe, wheel and steel producers. Pinchuk is the owner of four TV channels and a popular tabloid, Fakty i Kommentarii. He has been a member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for two consecutive terms from 1998 to 2006. He is married to Olena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

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Early life and careerEdit

Pinchuk was born in 1960 in Kyiv to Jewish parents[3][4] who moved to the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk. He graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute in 1983. Seven years later he founded the Interpipe Company on the basis of his patented innovations, which were successfully adopted by leading metallurgical factories in the USSR.

Interpipe, whose customers include Gazprom and Rosneft, is a major producer of seamless pipes and railway wheels. In 2004, Interpipe became the first Ukrainian company member of the World Economic Forum. Interpipe is very active in the 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. In 2004 Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, two of Ukraine's richest men, acquired the Kryvorizhstal steel factory for about $800 million.[5] Later, the first Tymoshenko Government reversed this sale, and held a nationally-televised repeat auction that netted $4.8 billion.[5] In 2006, Pinchuk founded an investment advisory company, EastOne. Its portfolio includes industrial assets such as production of pipes and tubes, railcar wheels, specialty steels and alloys, machinery, as well as media.

Pinchuk was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament between 1998 and 2006 for Labour Ukraine.[6] He left politics after he came to the conclusion that Ukraine had reached a level of development when business and politics should be separated.

Pinchuk is a member of the Board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, of the International Advisory Council of Brookings Institution and of the Corporate Advisory Board of the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. Pinchuk holds a share of VS Energy International Ukraine together with Mikhail Spektor and Igor Kolomoisky.[7]

On 18 November 2014 in Kyiv, Pinchuk was presented with the 2014 Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Award for his work in fostering Ukrainian-Jewish relations and advancing his homeland’s European aspirations.[8]

Pinchuk has supported 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 projects include the creation of a network of modern neonatal centres throughout Ukraine, cooperation programs with the Clinton Global Initiative, the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the ANTIAIDS Foundation of his wife Olena Pinchuk, 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.

In June 2009, Pinchuk organized the Paul McCartney free concert on Independence Square in Kyiv in front of 500,000 people. As an initiative of the Pinchuk Art Center,[9] in December 2009 Pinchuk announced a new $100,000 prize for artists under the age of 35. The Future Generation Art Prize is awarded every two years and is open to any young artist who applies online. The jury includes 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, serve as mentors who support to the finalists and the winner.[9] In December 2010, the main prize was awarded to Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle.

In February 2013, Pinchuk committed to giving half or more of his fortune during his lifetime and beyond to philanthropic causes, joining the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic initiative founded in 2010 by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Yalta European StrategyEdit

In 2004, Pinchuk created 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 recent annual meetings among others, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Stefan Fule, Paul Krugman, Alexei Kudrin, Shimon Peres, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Larry Summers and other political and business leaders were present to discuss Ukraine's European perspectives and global challenges. Pinchuk has long promoted closer ties between Ukraine and the EU.[10]

Victor Pinchuk is married to Olena Pinchuk, the daughter of the second president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. Olena Pinchuk runs the ANTIAIDS Foundation, which focuses on prevention and retroviral distribution and AIDS care in Ukraine. She and Pinchuk are friends of singer Elton John and former US President Bill Clinton, whose 60th birthday Pinchuk attended in New York.[11] Victor Pinchuk has three daughters and a son.

Pinchuk spent more than $6 million on his 50th birthday party in the French ski resort of Courchevel, flying in Cirque du Soleil and chef Alain Ducasse.[12]

Forbes ranked him No. 560 on the list of the wealthiest people in the world in 2014, with a fortune of $3.1 billion.[1] Pinchuk was listed as one of the "2010 Time 100 - The World's Most Influential People" in Time Magazine. He was ranked No. 1 on the ranking of promoters of Ukraine abroad by the Institute of World Policy and No. 38 on ArtReview magazine's 2013 Power 100 ranking of people in contemporary art.

1. ^ abVictor Pinchuk - Forbes, Forbes.com.
2. ^"Forbes The World's Billionaires". 
3. ^Arielle Thédrel (2009-10-27). "Victor Pinchuk, oligarque philanthrope". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 26 September 2014. 
4. ^Cnaan Liphshiz (February 6, 2013). "Jews occupy top 3 places on Ukrainian list of philanthropists". JTA. Retrieved 14 October 2013. 
5. ^ abMonopolies thrive as toothless state bows to moguls, Kyiv Post (March 18, 2010)
6. ^Ukraine Political Parties, GlobalSecurity.org
7. ^"Михаил Спектор: Сделаем упор на энергетику, гостиничный бизнес и недвижимость, все остальное – продадим". 
8. ^Ukrainian Jews seek to rehabilitate Holocaust era priest
9. ^ abCarol Vogel, New Prize to Honor Artists Under 35, The New York Times (December 7, 2009)
10. ^[1]
11. ^#6 Richest: Viktor Pinchuk, 50, Kyiv Post (December 17, 2010)
12. ^Henry Samuel (17 December 2010). "Ukrainian oligarch spending £4 million on birthday bash in Courchevel". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 26 September 2014.