What is Alexander Ponomarenko's Net Worth?
Alexander Ponomarenko is a Russian shipping magnate who has a net worth of $2.6 billion. After earning his initial small fortune from a perfume factory, Alexander Ponomarenko partnered with Alexander Skorobogatko founded the Russian General Bank in Moscow in 1996. They sold Russian General Bank to Hungarian OTP Bank for $477 million in 2006.
Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port
In the decade when they owned Russian General, the two Alexanders capitalized on the 1998 Russian financial crisis to buy a number of extremely valuable assets for pennies on the dollar. They primarily focused on buying the public equities of cargo companies.
Eventually they combined their shipping and cargo assets to form a single umbrella conglomerate operating through the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP). The resulting conglomerate made for the second-largest sea port in Russia.
Ponomarenko and took NCSP public in 2007, offering 19.3% of the company's equity on the London Stock Exchange. The company's overall value was around $1 billion not long after the IPO. In 2008 they sold a 20% stake in their overall business holdings to Arkady Rotenberg. In early 2011 NCSP was acquired by Summa Capital for $2.5 billion in cash.
With Arkady Rotenberg the trio formed TPS Real Estate Holding LTD, raising $15.5 billion in investment capital.
Personal Life
Alexander Ponomarenko is married and has three children. Their primary residence is in Moscow.
Ponomarenko was sanctioned by the European Union in February 2022 in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Villa La Chabanne
In 2008 Alexander Ponomarenko paid around $89 million for two side-by-side villas on a peninsula in the French Riviera town of Cap Ferrat. Technically, at the time of purchase Ponomarenko listed himself as 70% owner, but in the official French registry he listed his wife as the beneficial owner of 95% of the equity of the property's main holding company. This will become important in a moment.
Soon after buying the 4-acre double property, he embarked on a massive renovation. The renovation added a new pool and an underground parking structure. The project be seen mid-construction in the video below from January 2018:
When Ponomarenko was sanctioned by the European Union in February 2022, the villas were seized by the French government. Ponomarenko spent months attempting to challenge the seizure. He lost an important challenge regarding the villas in December 2022.
