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Alexander Ponomarenko is a Russian billionaire businessman. Alexander is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport, the largest airport in Russia.
Alexander Ponomarenko is a self-made businessman. He was born in Crimea in 1964 and began his business career in the late ‘80s, and after two decades was listed among the wealthiest people in the world with a fortune of more than three billion US dollars. Currently, Alexander Ponomarenko is focused on real estate development and chairs the Board of Directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport, the biggest gateway of Russia.
Biography
Ponomarenko was born on 27 October 1964 in Belogorsk, a small town of just over 15,000 nestled between the mountains and steppes of Crimea.
He spent his first two years of school at a boarding school in Alupka, where he developed an interest in sports, participating in track and field and futsal.
But boxing became his real passion in the third grade once he transferred to a regular school in Belogorsk. While his peers went to dances in the local palace of culture, Alexander spent hours in the boxing ring. On top of everything else, sports helped him financially: sporting trophies included meal coupons averaging 140-160 rubles per month. With this money the young athlete was not strapped for cash.
Alexander won the Boxing Republican Junior Championship and his coaches predicted a brilliant career for him in the boxing ring. However, to scale new heights in boxing, it was necessary to move to Kyiv. It was an alluring prospect but the future businessmen opted for staying in his hometown.
Educational Background and First Steps to Entrepreneurship
Alexander Ponomarenko graduated from high school in 1982 and was admitted to study at Simferopol State University, Department of Physical Education, where he continued to pursue his interest in sports. He was drafted into the army the following year and was assigned to one of the elite units, the Tula Guards Airborne Division, where he served in reconnaissance.
Ponomarenko made his debut in business in 1988 in Crimea with Alexander Skorobogatko, whom he had met a year earlier and who would become a lifelong business partner and close friend. The two men quickly established successful businesses in
- trucking,
- construction materials
- and the manufacture of beauty products.
At the same time, Ponomarenko returned to his studies in physical education at the Simferopol State University and received his university degree in 1988.
As their businesses grew, Ponomarenko and Skorobogatko began making plans for new ventures, Quickly realizing that large-scale opportunities were limited in Crimea, with its population of 1.5 million people, the two partners moved to Moscow to establish themselves in banking.
Banking business
Their first steps in banking path were fraught with difficulty. Ponomarenko became a co-owner of Yalosbank in 1993, but the country’s economy was in a turbulent state in which one crisis followed another, and Yalosbank declared bankruptcy in 1996.
The Russian General Bank (RGB), however, turned out to be more successful. The bank's assets grew annually, and by 1998 it was ranked 96th among domestic credit institutions.
By the mid-90s, Ponomarenko had become one of the most famous and recognizable entrepreneurs in Russia. He and Skorobogatko continued to develop their businesses and eventually decided to create a banking organization focused on retail services. The partners acquired several banks and merged them into RGB, creating a new institution they named Investsberbank, with offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large Russian cities.
Within a few years, Investsberbank had become one of the largest credit institutions in the country.In the early 2000s, its assets totaled nearly $ 1 billion, and the project began to attract interest from abroad, including from Hungary. In 2006, the media reported the purchase of Investsberbank by the Hungarian OTP Bank for more than $ 470 million.
At one time, Ponomarenko was also engaged in outdoor advertising as the majority owner of the Olymp industry agency, which had nearly 7% the Russian outdoor advertising market in the middle 2000s.
Academic Career
Practical entrepreneurship is not a guarantee of business success, and Ponomarenko sought to increase his knowledge of the theory and history of business by researching issues related to entrepreneurship. He became a research fellow at the International Institute of Corporations in January 1992 and graduated from the Ordzhonikidze Academy of Management five years later. His Ph.D. dissertation was on the regulation of small and medium-sized businesses, and in 2001, he became a Doctor of Economics, defending a dissertation on government regulation of corporations.
Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP)
A significant part of Ponomarenko's business career is associated with the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP). He and Alexander Skorobogatko together began buying NCSP shares and investing in stevedoring companies.
They steadily increased their ownership of the port, and by 2006, 63% of the NCSP shares were owned by a trust acting in the interests of the families of the two partners. The new owners continued to actively invest in the port infrastructure: the piers were expanded, and new terminals were built for transshipment of grain, mineral fertilizers, bulk cargo, containers and oil products. The investment paid off with plenty to spare: in 2010, the turnover of cargo in the port increased to 82 million tons. The ships regularly sailed between Novorossiysk and the ports of the EU countries, such as Germany, Italy, Cyprus, as well as Turkey and others.
In November 2007, the company launched an IPO and listed on the London Stock Exchange, MICEX and RTS. At that time, 20% of the shares were placed, and the market estimated NCSP’s value at $ 4.9 billion. Later, the trust sold a controlling stock of shares to the Summa Group and the Transneft Company. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the deal was worth about $2 billion. This was one of the largest deals in the transportation industry.
Property Development
After the sale of shares in NCSP, the trust, acting in the interests of the Ponomarenko and Skorobogatko families, established TPS Real Estate Holding, with an authorized capital of $1.5 billion to invest in the development of shopping centers. There were many players in this market, but TPS Real Estate quickly found its market niche, and quite a large one. Alexander Ponomarenko became the Chairman of the Board of Directors for TPS Nedvizhimost, a subsidiary of TPS RE. Its core business is construction and operation of large shopping and entertainment centers. In one of his interviews, Alexander Ponomarenko emphasized that the company aimed to build shopping malls in the center of large, investment-attractive cities. The businessman admitted the task was not easy due to high competition in the market, but he believed in the success of the enterprise. His acumen did not fail him. Today the company manages 700 thousand square meters of commercial real estate. Among them:
- Gallery Krasnodar shopping and entertainment center in Krasnodar - 145 thousand square meters
- Moremall shopping and entertainment center in Sochi - 169 thousand square meters
- Gallery Novosibirsk shopping and entertainment center in Novosibirsk - 134 thousand square meters
- Khorosho! shopping and entertainment center in Moscow - 114 thousand square meters
- Oceania shopping and entertainment center in Moscow - 130 thousand square meters.
Arkady Rotenberg initially owned a 33% share of the real estate development business, but he withdrew in 2014.
Sheremetyevo International Airport
The trust, acting in the interests of the Ponomarenko and Skorobogatko families, established TPS Avia to invest in the infrastructure of Sheremetyevo International Airport. Later, Sheremetyevo Holding was created, and Alexander Ponomarenko headed the board of directors of the enterprise. In 2016, he became the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport JSC, the air harbor operator.
Over the past few years, the airport has built facilities worth more than $ 2.5 billion. Among them:
- Terminal B
- Terminal C1
- Moscow Cargo Terminal - the largest cargo complex in Russia and Eastern Europe
- Underground tunnels for passengers and luggage under the airport runways
- refueling complex and other airport infrastructure facilities.
In 2019, Sheremetyevo International Airport was once again recognized as the best airport in Europe for the quality of passenger service. In 2019, the airport’s passenger traffic grew to 49.9 million. In the same year President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that named the air harbor after the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin as the result of a popular vote.
The air harbor has great potential, and reconstruction of the old and construction of new infrastructure increased the capacity to 110 million people per year.
In an interview for the Vedomosti newspaper, Alexander Ponomarenko said that in the coming years a new Terminal C2 would be built, with a capacity of 15 million people per year. The second stage of the cargo terminal would also be built, with a maximum annual cargo traffic of about 300 thousand tons.
Wealth
Today, Alexander Ponomarenko is ranked 31st on the Russian Forbes list of the wealthiest Russians, with a fortune estimated at $3.3 billion. He was also included in the list of the 1,000 best managers according to the industry association.
Hobbies
Alexander Ponomarenko embraces a healthy lifestyle, exercising regularly and keeping himself in excellent physical condition to withstand the demands of running a large enterprise. He regularly competes in endurance horse races, an equestrian sport in which success is determined by both the horse’s endurance and the rider’s ability to manage the horse over distances of 10 to 160 km.
Sometimes the businessman goes hunting together with his friends. However, for Alexander Ponomarenko it is more of a way to relax, reboot his brain, catch a breath of fresh air and spend some time by a campfire in the wild. When at home, he enjoys a large collection of thematic books.
Alexander Ponomarenko’s Family
Alexander Ponomarenko is a private person who seeks to protect his family’s privacy. He is a farther of three adult children, two sons and a daughter. His daughter graduated from Moscow State University and is now a practicing attorney. His sons are studying abroad.