Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Deripaska Deploys Russian Metals With Bolshoi-Like Pirouette

A lunch table laid out with platters of blini, beets and caviar and a bottle of 2001 Montrachet awaits Oleg Deripaska and his guests in a dining room at his Moscow headquarters. While others dig in, Deripaska sips only black tea and nibbles on toast.The 40-year-old owner of Basic Element, the holding company for a mining and manufacturing empire that’s gobbling up assets in Russia and abroad, exhibits little appetite for the trappings of corporate power. His focus is on fundamentals — restoring what he sees as Russia’s pre-perestroika industrial might.

“It’s a big country,” says Deripaska, speaking softly in English and wearing a navy blue blazer, dark-blue loafers and jeans. “This country needs everything: roads, hospitals, schools, airports, cars, trains, airplanes. There is huge demand, and supply is not coping.”

Few people have the means to affect the Russian economy like Deripaska. He’s worth at least $30 billion, based on analyst estimates of his closely held aluminum interests and Bloomberg data on his stakes in publicly traded auto, construction and insurance companies. Basic Element employs more than 300,000 people.

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