Bidzina Ivanishvili
| Bidzina Ivanishvili ბიძინა ივანიშვილი |
|
|---|---|
 |
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| 10th Prime Minister of Georgia | |
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In office 25 October 2012 – 20 November 2013 |
|
| President |
Mikheil Saakashvili Giorgi Margvelashvili |
| Preceded by | Vano Merabishvili |
| Succeeded by | Irakli Garibashvili |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
18 February 1956 Chorvila, Soviet Union (now Georgia) |
| Political party | Georgian Dream (2012-2013) |
| Spouse(s) | Ekaterine Khvedelidze |
| Children | Uta Bera Gvantsa Tsotne |
| Alma mater |
Tbilisi State University Moscow State University of Railway Engineering |
| Religion | Georgian Orthodoxy |
| Net worth |
 US$5.2 Billion (2015 Forbes)
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| Signature | .png) |
Bidzina Ivanishvili (Georgian: ბიძინა ივანიშვილი, also known as Boris Ivanishvili; born 18 February 1956) is a Georgian businessman and politician who was Prime Minister of Georgia from 25 October 2012 to 20 November 2013. He founded and led the Georgian Dream coalition, which won the 2012 parliamentary election. After the 2013 presidential election, he voluntarily resigned both his government and party positions, naming his long-time associate Irakli Gharibashvili as his successor.
In March 2010, Ivanishvili was granted French citizenship. In October 2011, he was deprived of his Georgian citizenship "according to Article 32 of the Georgian Law on Citizenship", shortly after he had announced his intention to form a political party to challenge Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
In March 2012, Ivanishvili was ranked at number 153 in Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's billionaires with an estimated worth of $6.4 billion, making him Georgia's richest person.
Bidzina Ivanishvili was born the youngest of five children to a poor family in the Georgian village of Chorvila. His father worked in a manganese factory. He graduated from high school in Sachkhere and went to Tbilisi State University to study engineering and economics. In 1982, he went to Moscow to pursue a Ph.D. in economics at the Moscow State University of Railway Engineering.
Prior to 1990 while living in Moscow, Ivanishvili met Vitaly Malkin, a Russian businessman currently into politics, with whom he formed a partnership selling computers, and later importing what was then a novelty in Russia, push-button telephones. The source of his great wealth is metals and banking. Forbes magazine's description of the secret of his success could apply to dozens of other oligarchs in Russia: "He bought firms not needed by anybody for tens of millions of dollars and sold them for billions of dollars." In 1990 he and Malkin set up "Rossiysky Kredit", which is up to now Ivanishvili's biggest holding. Over the years, he sold other businesses accumulated by him during the privatization era in Russia, investing the proceeds in the Russian stock market. He has also interests in hotels, including Hotel Lux, and in a Russian chain of drugstores called "Doctor Stoletov". He is also redeveloping a former factory in downtown Moscow into a deluxe housing project, the first blocks of which are to be completed by 2012.
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Wikipedia