Victor Pinchuk

Pinchuk Viktor Mikhailovich: Ukrainian oligarch and philanthropist

Pinchuk Viktor Mikhailovich is a Ukrainian businessman, oligarch and philanthropist, who is in the top of the richest Ukrainians. In 2021, Pinchuk ranked 2nd in the ranking of oligarchs. Owner of the StarLightMedia media group, founder of EastOne, Interpipe, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the PinchukArtCentre.

Victor Pinchuk was born on December 14, 1960 in the city of Kyiv.

Victor Pinchuk is an ethnic Jew. Among his ancestors are rabbis and melameds (mentors in Jewish schools). Victor's parents worked in the fields of science and metallurgy. Rumor has it that both on the maternal and paternal lines, Victor Pinchuk has an aristocratic family.

Victor Pinchuk was married twice.

His first wife was Elena Arshava. They got married in 1980. Two years later, a daughter, Maria, was born. Together with her grandfather, she owns shares in the Dime Firm, which trades in non-ferrous and ferrous metals. Maria also owns real estate in London.

Victor and Elena broke up in 1997, but the couple maintained a good relationship.

Immediately after the divorce, the entrepreneur began to live with Elena Franchuk, the daughter of President Leonid Kuchma. Elena has a son from her first marriage, Roman, to whom Victor Pinchuk is a stepfather. In 2002, Victor and Elena registered their relationship. A year later, the couple had a daughter, Ekaterina. Veronica was born in 2011.

In 2010, Victor Pinchuk became a grandfather for the first time. His eldest daughter gave birth to his granddaughter Margarita. How many grandchildren Pinchuk now has is not known for certain.

Victor Pinchuk is a metallurgical engineer by profession. He received his higher education at the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute.

As a child, Victor learned to play the violin. But he couldn't do it well. The guy graduated from high school with a gold medal. In the future, he intended to build a medical career, but he failed to enter the desired faculty. According to legend, the ethnic origin of Pinchuk prevented this. They say that this was not at all an obstacle. Some sources claim that Victor simply could not pass the exams and realized that medicine was not his calling.

So Victor's choice fell on the engineering and metallurgical faculty of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute. By the way, it was there that his mother taught. As a result, Victor Pinchuk gained a specialization in the manufacture of pipes and metal forming.

Victor Pinchuk started working in his student years, getting a job as a laboratory assistant at his institute. In addition, Pinchuk was a cutter of cold pipes at the Nizhnedneprovsky Pipe Rolling Plant. For some time, Victor worked as a night watchman.

After graduating from high school, Pinchuk entered graduate school and continued to work in his specialty.

Viktor Pinchuk began his career in 1983. He held a post in the design research institute of the pipe industry. There Victor grew from an intern to a senior researcher. But I had to leave work at the research institute. Rumor has it that Pinchuk's father-in-law insisted on this. According to rumors, it was he who forced Victor to go into business.

Starting a business

In 1987, together with his father, Victor opened a cooperative of inventors. He undertook to sell the best ideas to enterprises. The working conditions were rather unusual. The enterprise that took the innovation had to pay the cooperative 7.5% of the profits or savings that the team's invention brought.

In fact, Pinchuk selected the most promising patents of former colleagues at research institutes and promised to sell them. Pinchuk's parents were engaged in negotiations with potential buyers.

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"Interpipe"

In 1990, Victor and Mikhail Pinchuk founded their own company, Interpipe. At the beginning of its activity, the company was engaged in the resale of pipes. After the collapse of the USSR, the company resumed commercial activities in certain areas of the coal and metallurgical industries.

Vladimir Arshava joined the company's activities, bringing Victor Pinchuk together with Pavel Lazarenko and Sergey Tigipko, Gennady and Yulia Tymoshenko. The circle of new acquaintances also included future Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko and Leonid Kuchma, who later became president. Pinchuk's wife Elena Arshava, as well as several other influential people, including Russian businessman Mikhail Shchegolevsky, became part of Interpipe.

In 1992, under the auspices of Pavel Lazarenko, the Pinchuk company Interpipe and the Ukrainian Gasoline Corporation, which belonged to the Timoshenko family, created the Commonwealth Corporation. Over the next few years, this enterprise was the Ukrainian dealer of the Russian gas company Inter RAO.

The rich Pinchuks soon privatized the metallurgical plants where they worked. Banks appeared in the family's assets.

In 1995, Viktor Pinchuk's relations with the Timoshenko family and Pavel Lazarenko became much more complicated. So the Commonwealth corporation broke up. Further redistribution of business and territories of influence provoked a break in relations between Pinchuk and Vladimir Arshava. At his insistence, the divorce of Elena and Victor took place. Rumor has it that Pinchuk's frequent betrayals also served as the reason for the dissolution of the marriage.

But soon Viktor began a relationship with Elena Franchuk, the daughter of President Leonid Kuchma.

Thanks to the power of his father-in-law, Victor Pinchuk concluded lucrative international contracts. In 2006, Victor Pinchuk restructured his business group. So a number of companies and holdings arose.

Further activities of Pinchuk

In 2007, he created the investment and consulting group EastOne. In addition, the oligarch became the owner of various assets, including metallurgical, insurance, media and other enterprises that are located on the territory of Ukraine and abroad.

Victor Pinchuk also has his own media holding "StarLightMedia". It includes the most popular media, such as the STB, Novy Kanal, M1 TV channels, the Fakty newspaper and many others. By the way, compulsory subscription for many large enterprises played an important role in the promotion of the Fakty newspaper.

In 1998, Viktor Pinchuk became a parliamentary deputy of the III convocation. A year later, he was appointed adviser to the President of Ukraine, but soon left this position.

After the Orange Revolution, Viktor Pinchuk left politics and concentrated on entrepreneurship. However, Victor Pinchuk did not renounce the political community. It is known that from time to time he allocates funds to finance the election campaigns of political leaders of different countries.

As it became known, in 2015 he transferred 150 thousand USD to the account of the Donald Trump Foundation. This donation was the largest financial contribution of 2015 from outside donors outside of Donald Trump himself. Interestingly, the investment period coincided with the Trump presidential campaign.

In 2018, the American special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating Trump's investment in Russia, learned about the contribution of the Ukrainian businessman.

According to Donald Trump's organization, Pinchuk's money was received in exchange for a 20-minute address from the politician during the EU conference in Ukraine. Robert Muller considers the fee to be very high, so he considers the investment as a bribe.

Later, the press reported that Viktor Pinchuk decided to work on two fronts. Having allocated money to Donald Trump, he did not fail to support his main competitor, Hillary Clinton. The Ukrainian oligarch began listing investments in the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2006. As of 2018, the total amount of Pinchuk's deposits amounted to 13 million USD. According to data published in the US media, the largest investments in the Clinton fund were made by Ukrainian oligarchs, leaving their British, Saudi and German counterparts behind. Obviously, for this reason, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, did not hide his sympathy for the candidate for the presidency of the United States, Hillary Clinton. Given the amount invested in her political activities, US support promised to be strong.

By making investments in American politicians, Victor Pinchuk tried to buy good business partners from wealthy America.

Investing in American presidents, Victor Pinchuk does not forget about Ukrainian ones. Rumor has it that he has already financed two domestic leaders at once - gas princess Yulia Tymoshenko and rock star Svyatoslav Vakarchuk. At the same time, it is noted that the Ukrainian oligarch is just a link. There are various rumors, for example, that the Kremlin is behind him in Yulia Timoshenko's project. Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, it was rumored, was promoted by the American destroyer of the English bank, George Soros.

Back in the mid-1990s, when Victor Pinchuk got rich in energy, he began to buy expensive paintings and finance major concerts. Since then, rumors have spread about Pinchuk as a generous philanthropist. In 2006, Victor Pinchuk opened an art center in Kyiv. He named this institution modestly, in honor of himself - "PinchukArtCentre". The gallery has become the largest contemporary art center in Eastern Europe.

In the same year, the oligarch founded his charitable foundation. The name was chosen according to the same principle - "Viktor Pinchuk Foundation".

Viktor Pinchuk is also a member of the board of trustees of the Dnipro Jewish community, which he finances. It also includes Igor Kolomoisky, Gennady Bogolyubov and many other Ukrainian oligarchs.

Viktor Pinchuk is also a member of the board of trustees of the Dnipro Jewish community, which he finances. It also includes Igor Kolomoisky, Gennady Bogolyubov and many other Ukrainian oligarchs.