Dmitry Rybolovlev

During his student years, Dmitry Rybolovlev married his fellow student Elena in 1987, and their first daughter Ekaterina was born in 1989. Their second daughter Anna was born in 2001. Ekaterina is currently a well-known socialite. She hit the headlines, when at the age of 22, she bought a New York City apartment for $88 million. In 2013, she bought Skorpios, the Greek island that belonged to the successors of Aristotle Onassis.

During the 1990s, when Soviet Union was going through a difficult time, he was concerned about the safety of his family, and moved them to Switzerland, while he stayed back in Russia to run his business.

In September 1995, he was indicted and arrested for the contract killing of Evgeny Panteleymonov, the Director of Neftekhimik, a company partly owned by Dmitry. He was, however, set free after 11 months. In 1997, he was acquitted by the courts of law at three levels, including the Presidium of the Supreme Court.

Dmitry Rybolovlev was born on November 22, 1966, in Perm, Russia. Both his parents were doctors. In 1990, he graduated from the Perm Medical Institute as a cardiologist, and worked in the cardiology emergency service for some time.

In his childhood years, Theodore Dreiser’s book 'The Financier’ inspired him to venture into business.

In 1990, Dmitry Rybolovlev started a medical business project along with his father, Evgeny. He formed a company called Magnetics, and offered alternative medical treatment using magnetic fields developed by his father. However, due to the then chaotic economic scenario of the Soviet Union, his clients paid him with products rather than cash. Dmitry then had to find buyers for these products, and to his surprise, he found that the resale of the products yielded higher profits than his alternative medicine business. In fact, during this period, he earned his first million dollars!

In 1992, he opened an investment company, and bought shares of different companies. In 1994, he founded a bank, and acquired shareholdings of many Perm-based industrial enterprises, and joined their boards. In 1995, he sold most of his shareholdings in other companies, and focused on developing the potash industry, particularly the company Uralkali, and became its chairman.

Over the ensuing years he consolidated his controlling interest in the company and eventually established Uralkali as a major global company. From 2000 to 2007, labor productivity at Uralkali grew by 2.5 times.

In 2005, Uralkali and Belarusian potash producer Belaruskali merged their trade flows as a single trader—Belarusian Potash Company (BPC), and Dmitry became its chief executive. With a fivefold increase in potash prices over the next three years, the creation of BPC gave significant profits to Uralkali. As a result, in 2007, Uralkali’s IPO on the London Stock Exchange became very successful with the rising global prices of potash.

In June 2010, he sold 53% shareholding in Uralkali to a group of Russian investors. According to unofficial sources, it was sold at US$5.3 billion. In December, Uralkali bought potash producer Silvinit, and became one of the world's largest potash producers. In April 2011, he sold the rest of his Uralkali shares to a company owned by Alexander Nesis.

In 2010, Dmitry Rybolovlev was awarded the Order of St. Seraphim of Sarov I degree by Patriarch Kirill for funding the restoration of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God in Zachatyevsky Convent.