Boris Romanovich Rotenberg

Boris Romanovich Rotenberg (Russian: Ротенберг Борис Романович, born in Leningrad on 3 January 1957) is a Russian business man and oligarch. He is co-owner (with his brother Arkady Rotenberg) of the SGM (Storygazmantazh) group, the largest construction company for gas pipelines and electrical power supply lines in Russia. He was listed by Forbes as Russia's 69th wealthiest person in 2016 with a net worth of $1.07 billion.^[1] He is considered a close confidant of president Vladimir Putin.^[2]

Biography

Rotenberg was very involved in martial arts between 1968 and 1978, particularly judo. He trained alongside Vladimir Putin^[2] and won several awards for the Soviet Union. In 1992, he became a professional judo trainer in Helsinki. In 1998, he returned to St. Petersburg.

In 2001, he and his brother founded the SMP bank, which operates in 40 Russian cities with over 100 branches, more than half of them in the Moscow area. SMP oversees the operation of more than 900 ATM-machines.

Based on his friendship with Vladimir Putin, his company became closely aligned with Gazprom.^[2] Mr. Rotenberg is a member of the St. Petersburg Connection, a powerful energy lobby under the leadership of Mr. Putin.

He was involved in 20 construction projects for the Sochi Winter Olympics worth 5 billion Euro. The largest site was the coastal highway to Adler, where the Olympic Park was constructed for the numerous sport arenas.^[2]

From July 2013^[3] to 17 July 2015, Rotenberg was the president of FC Dynamo Moscow soccer club.^[4] He is also the president of the Russian Judo federation. Mr. Rotenberg's two older sons are Roman Rotenberg, chief of marketing for the ice hockey club SKA St. Petersburg and Boris Rotenberg, a soccer player for the FC Dynamo Moscow team.^[5][6] After leaving Dynamo Moscow, he bought another soccer club FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg.

As a result of the 2014 Crimean crisis, the federal government of the United States under Barack Obama blacklisted the Rotenberg brothers and other close friends of the Russian president, including Sergei Ivanov and Gennadi Timchenko. On July 2014, the European union also blacklisted Boris Romanovich Rotenberg's company Giprotransmost for conducting the feasibility study of the construction of a bridge from Russia to the illegally annexed Autonomous Republic of Crimea.^[7][8]

On 27 March 2014, both Visa and Mastercard executed the boycott of SMP Bank, Investcapitalbank and Investitsionny Soyuz (Investment Union) bank. However, just a few days later, it was announced that the institutions do not meet the criteria under which the U.S. Treasury introduces economic sanctions.^[9]

Rotenberg was named in the Panama Papers.^[10]

References

1. "#1694 Boris Rotenberg". Retrieved 3 April 2016.
2. Lucian Kim (28 April 2010). "Putin’s Judo Friend Says Premier Didn’t Help Win Gazprom Deals". Bloomberg.com.
3. "Boris Rotenberg replaced Solovyev on a post of the president of FC Dynamo". Wrestling.com.ua. 18 July 2013.
4. Борис Ротенберг покидает пост президента (in Russian). FC Dynamo Moscow. 17 July 2015.
5. Saul Pope (4 May 2015). "The Unusual Career of Boris Rotenberg". Futbolgrad.com.
6. "Boris Rotenberg Jr, family friend of Vladimir Putin, has unexpected and mercurial rise to peak of Russian football". Telegraph.co.uk. 6 May 2015.
7. Valentina Pop (30 July 2014). "EU blacklists three Putin 'cronies'". Euobserver.com.
8. "RÈGLEMENT D'EXÉCUTION (UE) No 826/2014 DU CONSEIL du 30 juillet 2014". Eur-lex.europa.eu (in French). 30 July 2014.
9. D Butrin, O Shestopal, S Dementyeva (2014). Visa and MasterCard withdraw sanctions against two Russian banks. Russia Beyond the Headlines. 24 March 2014.
10. "Panama Papers: The Power Players". International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016.

External links

• Oliver Bilger: Krim-Krise, Die Angst vor dem Wirtschaftskrieg wächst, Die Zeit, 21 March 2014.