Ivanishvili made his fortune in post-Soviet Russia during the 1990s building a collection of iron ore producers, steel plants, banks and real estate. He sold the majority of his assets between 2003 and 2006, and the rest in the run-up to his election as Georgian prime minister in October 2012. He stepped down after a year in office.
The majority of Ivanishvili's fortune is derived from proceeds he collected selling privatized assets acquired after the fall of the Soviet Union. Among them: iron ore producers Stoylensky and Mikhailovsky GOKs, and the Orlovsky steel plant.
Ivanishvili created several closely held businesses during the 1990s and early 2000s, including banks Rossiysky Kredit and Impex, grain processor Stoylenskaya Niva, and the Doctor Stoletov pharmacy chain. He also invested in Moscow real estate and property development projects. He collected $2.6 billion selling some of these assets between 2003 and 2006. He sold the rest for $1.5 billion in 2012, in the run-up to Georgia's parliamentary elections, in which he became prime minister of the former Soviet republic.
The billionaire has disclosed details about these asset sales to the Russian media, including the Vedomosti and Kommersant newspapers, which are the basis for the net worth calculation.
Ownership stakes in the assets have never been disclosed. The analysis assumes the billionaire is the sole owner in all of them, except Impex bank, where minor partner Vitaly Malkin had a 33% stake, according to local media reports.
He stepped down from office after a year in office in November 2013. He said in an interview with Bloomberg News in August 2013 that his investments had performed poorly and that he had increased his personal spending.
Based on his comments about his investment strategy, the proceeds are included here in a blend of 27% equities, 36% fixed income, 20% cash, 12% alternative investments and 5% commodities.
His art is valued at $1 billion, according to a person familiar with it who asked not to be identified because the collection is private.
Bidzina Ivanishvili was born in Chorvila, a village in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in 1956. He graduated with honors from Tbilisi State University in 1980, earning a degree in engineering and economics. Ivanishvili moved to Moscow and, in 1986, earned a candidate's degree from Scientific and Research Institute of Labor. He returned to Tbilisi, where he took a job at the local office of Georgia's Institute of Labor.
The billionaire moved to Moscow in the late 1980s, and founded Rossiysky Kredit bank in 1990. He accumulated shares in a number of Russian state-owned assets after the fall of the Soviet Union, including iron ore producers Stoylensky and Mikhailovsky GOKs, and the Orlovsky steel plant. He spent the next decade buying closely held assets. By the early 2000s, he had created Impex bank; Stoylenskaya Niva, a third-largest flour producer in Russia; and the Doctor Stoletov retail pharmacy chain. He also invested in property development and real estate projects in Moscow.
Ivanishvili started selling his Russian assets in 2003, first unloading his stake in the Orlovsky steel plant to Severstal, Russia's steelmaker, for $39.4 million. He subsequently sold the Stoylensky iron ore producer to billionaire Vladimir Lisin, owner of Novolipetsk Steel, for $510 million, and a controlling stake in Mikailovsky GOK, Russia's second-largest iron ore producer, to billionaire Alisher Usmanov, for $1.7 billion.
He moved back to Georgia in 2005, and was an early supporter of President Mikheil Saakashvili, who'd been elected the year before. He soon soured on Saakashvili's policies and, in 2011, established his own political party, the Georgian Dream. Preparing a run for office, he sold the rest of his Russian assets, collecting more than $1.5 billion. A coalition led by his party won 55 percent of the vote in October 2012, and Ivanishvili, who lives in Tbilisi with his wife and four children, was elected prime minister. He stepped down after a year in office in November 2013.