Usmanov, a two-time Uzbekistan fencing champion in his youth, says the sport develops skills that have helped in life and in business. “The main thing in fencing is to score a touch without giving up a touch in return,” he says. “The sport teaches you to be patient, waiting for the right moment to attack.”
He’s picked his moments well as an investor, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its October special issue on the 50 Most Influential people in global finance. In the late 1990s, with Russia’s economy in turmoil, Usmanov began to assemble a metals conglomerate that thrived when demand for commodities boomed and prices soared a few years later.
Then he shifted money to technology companies such as Mail.ru Group Ltd., the largest social-network operator in Russia. With his partner, Mail.ru founder Yuri Milner, he bought a $200 million stake in Facebook Inc. in 2009 that was worth about $2 billion when the company had its initial public offering three years later.
While many Russian billionaires have seen their fortunes shrink as raw materials prices have slid over the past two years, Usmanov has become the country’s richest man on the strength of his tech investments. He’s worth more than $20 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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