Dripping in diamonds for a City banquet at the Mansion House, I received Andrei Melnichenko, a top-10 Russian billionaire, as he walked out of the lift dressed in jeans, patterned t-shirt and a Dolce & Gabbana anorak. He didn’t blink an eye; my jaw dropped to the floor. Russia is different.Tanned, with the cropped hair of a Russian conscript and the embarrassed, laughing manner of a 16-year old, Mr Melnichenko’s MDM Group owns the country’s largest coal company, its largest producer of nitrogen and phosphate fertilisers (which is the second largest in Europe), a 33% stake in the largest industrial pipe company, as well as one of the most successful private banks.
Exact numbers for the coal and chemical businesses will be available next year as they are being prepared under international accounting standards. So far, Mr Melnichenko will admit only that margins of no less than 20% are common in the industry, and that the group had sales of $3.5bn last year. Meanwhile, MDM Financial Group, which includes the bank and other assets, posted net profits of $110m in 2002 on total assets of $3.42bn.
