On a Sunday afternoon in January, Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska gets ready to leave his sprawling mansion in Zhukovka, a wealthy suburb of Moscow where his neighbors include President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. His children, Pyotr, 9, and Marusia, 7, burst in the door, greet their father and run happily down the long hallway. His wife, Polina, who is publisher of the Russian edition of the magazine Hello!, prepares to welcome guests for a party celebrating the Russian Orthodox New Year, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its April issue.
As snow crunches underfoot, Deripaska, who heads Moscow- based aluminum producer United Co. Rusal, walks around his compound. The estate is surrounded by a 14-foot- （4-meter-） high brick wall patrolled by beefy security guards. He points beyond a white stucco building, saying his mother lives on the other side.
The 43-year-old metals magnate grew up poor in a Cossack village in southern Russia, and he has re-created a slice of his rural roots in Zhukovka. In addition to a pool and a studio where he practices yoga in the morning, the compound houses seven horses and six dogs, including one named Aristotle.
“I have my best horse here, a stud,” he says.
Deripaska has spent relatively little time in Zhukovka since the financial crisis pummeled his metals empire in late 2008, pushing him off his perch as Russia’s richest man. Rusal had accumulated $17 billion in debt in a bull market acquisition binge and struggled to make payments when the value of the assets that had been pledged as collateral collapsed.
Deripaska responded by creating what he calls a war room at Rusal’s headquarters in Moscow, where he worked around the clock for a year renegotiating his debts with more than 70 banks before reaching a deal in December 2009.
The Norilsk stake has put Deripaska at the center of Russia’s biggest corporate battle as the mining giant tries to buy him out. In February, Norilsk offered Rusal $12.8 billion for 20 percent of the company to end a feud over its management. Norilsk produces both nickel and palladium, a mineral crucial to the production of catalytic converters in automobiles.
A physics graduate who worked in security in the Soviet Army, Deripaska survived the violent dividing of spoils after the collapse of the Soviet Union through a combination of book smarts and street smarts. Deripaska is still fighting his fellow billionaires for primacy in the boardroom as he struggles for control of Norilsk.
Soaring commodities prices have enriched industrialists such as Deripaska around the world. Others include Brazil’s Eike Batista, head of a commodities empire that includes iron ore miner MMX Mineracao & Metalicos SA; Anil Agarwal, founder of Vedanta Resources Plc, India’s largest copper producer; and Andrew Forrest, chief executive officer of Australian iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group Ltd.
Deripaska runs a vertically integrated aluminum producer. Rusal mines bauxite, the raw material from which aluminum is made, in places such as Guinea and Jamaica. The bauxite is processed into a substance called alumina, which is then made into aluminum -- an energy-intensive process where low-cost power is the key to staying competitive.
In Russia, Deripaska’s overall strategy hinges on Rusal’s smelters being located next to cheap Siberian hydropower stations, many of which are part of EuroSibEnergo, his independent energy company. EuroSibEnergo has a long-term contract to supply Rusal with power at set rates. Deripaska plans to sell shares in EuroSibEnergo in Hong Kong in the first half of 2011, with a goal of raising $1.5 billion.
China is also Deripaska’s target market for aluminum. Rusal is betting on 12 percent growth in aluminum consumption in China this year.
And what if the overheated Chinese economy loses steam and demand for Russia’s metals dissolves? Deripaska says that’s unlikely. He’s clearly a survivor -- whether he’s dueling with fellow Russians or confronting overdue bank loans.
（Bloomerg）
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