From finance director to owner of Severstal
Mordashov's wealth comes from Severstal, the steel company built around the Cherepovets metallurgical plant in the Vologda region north of Moscow. He joined the plant as a young economist in the late 1980s and became its finance director in 1992, just as the Soviet economy was being dismantled and state enterprises were being turned into joint stock companies.
During privatization, employees received shares in the plant. Mordashov and the plant's management bought up many of those shares and gathered control through affiliated companies, and he became chief executive of Severstal in 1996. Over the following decade he consolidated ownership and expanded the business from a single steel mill into a vertically integrated group with its own iron ore and coal mines, which lowered its costs and protected it from swings in raw material prices.
Severstal listed shares and depositary receipts in Moscow and London and became one of the more profitable steelmakers in Russia, paying large dividends. Mordashov's controlling stake in the company has been the base from which he has invested in other industries.
Investments beyond steel
In the 2000s Severstal expanded abroad, buying steel mills in the United States and Italy, but it sold its North American plants in 2014 and refocused on Russia. Mordashov's holding company, Severgroup, became the vehicle for his other investments.
Those have included:
- Nord Gold, a gold mining company with mines in Russia, Kazakhstan and West Africa, listed in London in 2012 and later taken private
- TUI, the German travel group, where he became the largest shareholder
- Lenta, a Russian hypermarket and supermarket chain in which he took a controlling stake in 2019
- Holdings in Russian media and other services
- Stakes in online grocery and other consumer businesses in Russia
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States imposed sanctions on him. Part of his TUI shareholding was transferred shortly before the sanctions took effect, the remaining position was frozen, and several other foreign assets were frozen or sold. The episode showed how exposed a fortune built in Russia but invested partly in Europe had become to geopolitics.
Childhood in a steel town
Alexei Alexandrovich Mordashov was born in 1965 in Cherepovets, where both of his parents worked at the steel plant. He studied economics at the Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Economics and graduated with honors in 1988, then returned to his home town to work at the mill as an economist.
He rose quickly. His promotion to finance director in his twenties put him in charge of the plant's money at the moment when control of Soviet industry was up for grabs. He later took a business degree from Northumbria University in Britain.
Unlike many Russian businessmen of his generation who made their first money in trading or banking, Mordashov built his position from inside a single industrial company. Analysts have often described him as a manager with a detailed command of the steel business, and he has remained chairman of Severstal's board for many years. He later handed the chief executive role to a professional manager while keeping control as the main shareholder.
Public role and philanthropy
Mordashov has long been a member of business associations in Russia and has taken part in government councils on industry. He has generally avoided political statements and kept a lower profile than some peers.
His charitable work has focused on Cherepovets and the Vologda region, where Severstal is the main employer. Severstal has funded schools, sports programs, hospitals and urban improvements in the city, and Mordashov has supported education initiatives and cultural organizations, including restoration projects in the Russian north. He has also backed programs for gifted children.
The sanctions of 2022 changed his public position. The European Union described him as an influential businessman linked to the Kremlin, which he disputed in court. Some of his property abroad, including a superyacht in Italy, was frozen. He has said that he has nothing to do with political decisions and has continued to run his businesses from Russia.