Background and career
Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov (Uzbek: Alisher Burxonovich Usmonov, Russian: Алишер Бурханович Усманов; born 9 September 1953) is a Russian-Uzbek businessman. As of 2026, Usmanov is the 222nd richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of $14.1 billion, largely due to his stake in USM Holdings, in which Usmanov holds less than 50%. Usmanov was a successful entrepreneur in the Soviet Union in the 1980s but made substantial wealth after the collapse of the Soviet Union primarily through investments in metal and mining operations as well as large early investments in technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, VK, and Alibaba Group. In addition to his stake in Metalloinvest, he owns the Kommersant publishing house, is a co-owner of MegaFon, a mobile telephone operator, and co-owner of the Udokan mine, which develops one of the largest copper deposits in the world. He has been the president of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime, the international governing body of the sport of fencing, since 2008. Amid international sanctions, Usmanov temporarily suspended his duties as the FIE President in 2022 and 2024 after his re-election. From 1980 to 1986 he spent six years in a Soviet prison on charges of fraud and embezzlement, but his conviction was later overturned. In 2000, he underwent political rehabilitation by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, which ruled that the case against him was fabricated and no crime had been committed. Usmanov has been described as having close ties to President of Russia Vladimir Putin, which he denies, and, as a result, he has been sanctioned by the US, UK, and Ukrainian governments since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On September 22, 2026, the European Union removed Alisher Usmanov from its sanctions list.
Usmanov was born in Uzbekistan in the provincial town of Chust. He spent his childhood in the capital Tashkent, where his father was a state prosecutor, thus providing for a privileged life, and his mother, Dilbar taught Russian language. Planning to pursue a career of a diplomat, he later moved to Moscow. After first failing to be accepted, one year later he was accepted to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, from which he graduated in 1976 with a degree in international law. Usmanov then returned to Tashkent, where he was appointed director of the Foreign Economic Association of the Soviet Peace Committee. Usmanov was arrested and convicted on charges of fraud, corruption, and theft of state property, which charges included shaking down an Army officer, in Uzbek SSR in August 1980. From 1980, when he was 26 years old, until 1986, when he was 33 years old, he was imprisoned in a remote Uzbek prison for six years of an eight-year sentence. In July 2000, his conviction was vacated, nine years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, which ruled that "the original conviction was unjust, no crime was ever committed, and that the evidence was fabricated." His version of events has been questioned by Craig Murray, the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004. Years later, Usmanov's public relations firm tried to delete reference to his conviction and imprisonment from Wikipedia.
Usmanov became a dollar millionaire in the years before the Soviet Union collapsed. In the late 1980s, he set up a privately owned for-profit company, cooperative Agroplast which produced plastic bags, at a time when they were very scarce. He enriched himself considerably after the collapse of the USSR, but always stressed that he never participated in the privatization of state property. Usmanov worked as the Deputy General Director of Intercross JSC from 1990 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998, he headed Interfin Interbank Investment and Finance Company. He also acted as an Adviser to the General Director of Moscow Aviation Industrial Enterprise from 1994 to 1995, and served as the First Deputy Chairman of MAPO-Bank from 1995 to 1997. From August 1997 to February 2000 he was First Deputy General Director of Gazprom Vestholding LLC. From November 2000 to July 2001, he served as advisor to the chairman of the board of Gazprom. From February 2000 to October 2014, he served as general director of Gazprom Vestholding LLC, a subsidiary of Gazprom that focused on managing non-core assets. In this position, Usmanov had Gazprom acquire Severneftegazprom, which owns the largest South Russian field, controlling stakes in Zapsibgazprom and Sibur, as well as over 50% of Stroytransgaz. Usmanov left the company in 2014.
In 1999, Usmanov co-founded Metalloinvest with Vasily Anisimov to make acquisitions in the metal industry. Unlike Russia's tycoons who won control of empires through loans-for-share privatization schemes of the 1990s, Usmanov built up Metalloinvest through a series of acquisitions in the secondary market. Metalloinvest owns a wide range of Russian metal and mining businesses including Lebedinsky GOK and Mikhailovsky GOK; Oskol Elektrometallurgical Plant and Ural Steel steel mills and a ferrous scrap enterprise – Ural Scrap Company. In March 2022, Metalloinvest sold the Ural Steel to Zagorsk Pipe Plant. Usmanov holds a non-controlling stake less than 50% in USM, a global conglomerate with its main investments in metals and mining industry, telecommunications and technology. In 2004, Usmanov acquired 13% of Corus Group (later Tata Steel Europe), borrowing $49.5 million from Sevenkey, a trust for the benefit of Igor Shuvalov, the top assistant to Vladimir Putin; funds were provided by Eugene Shvidler. Despite Usmanov's ability to borrow at low rates, Sevenkey received over a 40% annualized return for this investment, in 2006, it received 4.9% of Gallagher's investment income. Between 2006 and 2008, Usmanov acquired stakes in Australia-based mining companies: Strike Resources (iron ore deposit in Peru), Medusa, Mt Gibson and Aztec Resources through Gallagher Holdings. In 2013, it was remained USM Holdings after a merger with assets from Andrei Skoch and Farhad Moshiri. In 2009, Metalloinvest Holding sold its 10.37% stake in Australian gold producer Medusa Mining for A$56 million. As of 2009, Metalloinvest was the second largest shareholder, after Mohammed Al Bawani (MB Holding), in Nautilus Minerals. These two shareholders took control of the company after its filed for bankruptcy in 2019. In November 2015, USM invested US$100 million in competitive video game esports team Virtus Pro. In 2021, USM and Metalloinvest announced plans to construct one of the world's largest Hot-briquetted iron eco-plants in Kursk Oblast to supply greener products used to make steel amid a growing focus to clean up the industry.
In 2008, Metalloinvest bought the Udokan licence for $500mn, which was discovered in Soviet times and proved to be one of the world's largest copper deposit. Geologists estimate there are 26.7mn tonnes of copper ore under the JORC classification. In 2020, Baikal Mining Company (rebranded to Udokan copper) began strip mining at the Udokan mine, which had been untouched since 1949 due to the site's remoteness and extreme weather conditions. The development of Udokan includes the construction of the first stage of a mining and metallurgical plant for the production of cathode copper and copper concentrate, as well as the production of up to 125,000 tpy of copper in addition to 12mn tonnes of ore.
In 2008, Usmanov became acquainted with Yuri Milner, and soon became a shareholder of DST Global and VK (VK). Usmanov had 25.3% of interest in VK, and 60.6% of voting interest until he sold a $530 million stake and reduced his interests to 17.9 and 58.1% in 2013. In 2014, Ivan Tavrin acquired Pavel Durov's shares in Vk.ru, to help (together with Usmanov) Durov retain control under the Telegram app when UCP attempted to take control of Telegram. In December 2021, USM Holdings sold its interest in VK to Russian insurance company Sogaz and Gazprombank, thereby fully exiting its shareholding in VK.
