Leonid Lebedev
| Leonid Lebedev | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 2, 1956 Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship | Cypriot |
| Alma mater | Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering |
| Occupation | Businessman and politician |
| Known for | owner of Sintez Group |
| Net worth | US$1.2 billion (2017) |
| Spouse(s) | Widowed |
| Children | 2 daughters |
Leonid Lebedev (born May 2, 1956) is a Russian billionaire businessman, and a former elected representative in Russia's Upper House of Parliament.
Lebedev is sole owner of Sintez Group, a privately held energy, oil and gas and property development company with more than $1 billion in annual sales. In 1988 he co-founded the company, which according to Forbes Russia now ranks 154th among private companies in Russia.
He has also been a businessman in music and film, serving as a producer, during the 1980s and more recently, in the creation of independent films such as Hipsters and The Geographer Drank His Globe Away.
In 2002 he was elected to the Federation Council (Russia), Russia's Upper House of Parliament, representing the Republic of Chuvashia.
Leonid Lebedev was born in Moscow. He earned a degree in engineering from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering in 1979.
He served as an consultant to the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Mosconcert during the early 1980s.
In 1988, just after Perestroika, Lebedev co-founded Sintez International, an American joint venture, which traded in commodities and industrial supplies.
According to Forbes, Lebedev is "one of the few Soviets who experimented with joint business ventures between the capitalistic US and the socialistic USSR in the 1980s." He is "not your typical Russian businessman who took advantage of early privatization or operated under some influential politician's wing." Forbes further states, "He sunk wells where there were none and struck black gold," pointing out his "entrepreneurial experience" accumulated in "tumultuous times in Russia."
In Western Siberia, Sintez built an oil production plant, called Negusneft, developed its infrastructure, and undertook industrial trading and exports.
In 1989 Lebedev co-founded Sintez Records, a recording studio and label for underground rock artists.
In February 2014, Lebedev sued his former partners, Viktor Vekselberg and Leonid Blavatnik, for breach of contract for $2 billion in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Lebedev is a "movie producer with more than a dozen feature films in his portfolio." He is a co-founder and a co-owner of the "Red Arrow" film studio in Russia.
In 2008, he joined forces with director Valery Todorovsky to co-produce Hipsters (film) (in Russian, Stilyagi) a romantic comedy set in 1950s Moscow, and Russia's first post-Soviet musical. He also produced The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (film), which won the Gran Prix at the 2013 Kinotavr film festival and at the 2013 Film Festival Cottbus.
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