Background and career
Suleyman Abusaidovich Kerimov (Russian: Сулейма́н Абусаи́дович Кери́мов; Lezgian: Керимрин Абусаидан хва Сулейман; born 12 March 1966) is a Russian billionaire, oligarch, philanthropist and politician of Lezgin descent. Kerimov maintains close ties to Vladimir Putin's administration in Russia, and formerly enjoyed a close relationship with Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman of Chechnya. More recently, Kerimov and Kadyrov have fallen out. He entered politics in the 1990s. By 1999, he had gained control of Nafta Moskva, a former state oil trader. In the 2000s, Kerimov secured billions of dollars in loans from major Russian state‑owned banks, such as Sberbank and VTB. Through these loans, he acquired substantial stakes in Gazprom and Uralkali, as well as Sberbank. By 2008, his fortune had reached $21 billion, although by 2022 it had declined to $11 billion. Since 2008, Kerimov has represented the Republic of Dagestan in the Federation Council of Russia. In 2011, he bought the football club FC Anzhi Makhachkala, which subsequently made a series of high‑profile signings. The club acquired Samuel Eto'o, making him the highest‑paid player in the world. In 2013, Kerimov drastically and abruptly reduced the team's funding, leading to a firesale of players. In April 2018, he was placed under sanctions by the United States Department of the Treasury. In the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kerimov was sanctioned as a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Putin by the US, the UK and the EU on 15 March 2022. Suleiman Kerimov has been the subject of scrutiny in the United States for a number of years. In April 2022, Kerimov's son Said Kerimov resigned from the board of Polyus Gold and the family sold its stake in the company, valued at $6.3 billion, thereby relinquishing the position of majority shareholder.
Kerimov was born on 12 March 1966 in Derbent, Dagestan, into a Dagestani Lezgin family, he belongs to the Lezgin sikhil (clan) Tvarkar. His ancestral village is said to be Karakyure in the Dokuzparinsky District. He graduated from high school in 1983 and subsequently enrolled in the Civil Engineering Department at the Dagestan Polytechnic Institute in 1984, although his obligatory military service in the Soviet Army interrupted his studies barely a year later. After completing his service in 1986, Kerimov resumed his studies at Dagestan State University, from which he graduated with a degree in financial accounting and economics in 1989. While a student, he served as deputy chairman of the university's Trade Union Committee. It was also at university that Kerimov met his wife, Firuza, the daughter of a former trade union leader. Kerimov has said that he had dreamed of making money from an early age, an ambition that later prompted him to leave his native Dagestan in the early 1990s.
Soon after his university graduation in 1989, Kerimov took a job as an economist at the Eltav electrical plant in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The state-controlled plant supplied transistors and semi-conductors to television-makers, while also producing diodes, microchips and halogen lamps. Kerimov was paid 150 roubles (approximately $250 dollars) a month and he and his wife lived in a worker's hostel attached to the plant, where they shared one room of a two-room flat. Eventually, Kerimov rose to the rank of Deputy Director General at Eltav and began to dabble in investing during the fall of the Soviet Union.
In 1993, Kerimov was put in charge of handling relations between Eltav and Fedprombank, a Moscow bank established by the electrical company. Fedprombank financed lagging industries and Kerimov and his associates soon became creditors to large utility companies, allowing them to continue providing key services. Once the Russian economy stabilized, the debts were repaid with hefty returns for Fedprombank and, consequently, Kerimov. In 1995, Kerimov was appointed to head the banking and trading company Soyuz-Finans, and by 1997, Kerimov had built a 50% stake in Vnukovo Airlines and used his leverage to take over Fedprombank, buying out his partners' shares.
In late 1999, Kerimov bought a 55% stake in the oil trading company Nafta Moskva, the successor to the Soviet monopoly firm Soyuznefteexport, for $50 million. By 2000, he had increased his stake of Nafta Moskva to 100%. Kerimov undertook a mass restructuring of the company, selling off all of the oil-related aspects and creating an investment and holding company. Nafta's investments in the mid-2000s included purchase of the business center Smolensky Passazh and AvtoBank.
In 2003, Kerimov managed to secure a $43 million loan from the state-owned Vnesheconombank, which he invested in the oil and gas company Gazprom. Within the next year, share prices for the Russian gas company doubled and Kerimov was able to pay off the entirety of the loan within four months. In 2004 Sberbank, now the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe, provided Kerimov with a loan of $3.2 billion, which was later repaid, and these funds were also invested in equities. By 2008, Kerimov had amassed a 5% stake in Gazprom, a 6% stake in Sberbank, along with an estimated fortune of $17.5 billion, making him the 36th richest man in the world. However, in mid-2008, Kerimov sold all his Gazprom and Sberbank shares.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
