German Borisovich Khan, more commonly known as German Khan, is a Ukrainian-born Russian–Israeli businessman and philanthropist. He was born on 24 October 1961 to Ukrainian Jewish parents in Kyiv, then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
His father was a scientist and well-known metallurgical specialist, and German would follow in his father’s footsteps as far as his academic career was concerned. He attended a college offering specialist learning in manufacturing and technology, graduating with honours aged 18.
Khan was keen to attain a solid foundation in work experience, and took an apprenticeship as a mechanic at the Kyiv Experimental and Development Plant for Non-Standard Equipment.
In 1983, he returned to his studies – this time turning his focus to his father’s specialist subject – and entered the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (MISIS) as a student at the ferrous metal casting faculty. He would study at the institute for five years, until 1988. This is also where he would first encounter two classmates who would end up playing a significant role in his professional life: Alexei Kuzmichev and Mikhail Fridman.
Career beginnings
Having graduated in the late 1980s of the Soviet Union, Khan was entering the world of work at the height of the ‘cooperative era’. Mikhail Gorbachev had signed the Law on Cooperatives, which instituted significant economic reforms when it was implemented in May 1988. It allowed for independent worker-owned cooperatives to operate in the country alongside state-owned enterprises. Khan found work at the Kosmos cooperative, which offered garments, footwear and jewellery on a wholesale basis and rented a premises at TsUM (Central Universal Department Store), a historic Gothic Revival-style building which is located on Theatre Square in Central Moscow and dates back to 1908.
In 1988, he co-founded Alfa-Photo with fellow MISIS alumni and businessmen Alexei Kuzmichev and Mikhail Fridman. The company was responsible for importing chemicals used in photography.
Beyond his activities with Kuzmichev and Fridman, he founded his own cooperative business, Alexandrina, in 1989. The enterprise was involved in garments and tailoring, and he took on the role of deputy chairman of the company, where he was responsible for the supply chain flows and sales until the company was sold in 1990.
The Alfa story
The next step with Kuzmichev and Fridman was the founding of Alfa-Eco and Alfa Capital in 1989. The new endeavour would set the group on a path to eventually becoming billionaires, though the process did not happen overnight.
The Alfa-Eco and Alfa Capital ventures would be consolidated into the Alfa Group Consortium – today going by Alfa Group – in the same year. In 1990, Khan was made head of wholesale trade at Alfa-Eco, where he would be responsible for developing the business’ activities in the buying and selling of goods such as upholstery and carpets on the domestic market, eventually expanding into international markets.
Alfa-Eco would soon be restructured as the trading arm of the newly incorporated Alfa Group Consortium and, starting in 1992, Khan would hold a number of executive and board member roles in the growing empire. He was head of trade operations at Alfa-Eco until 1996, and director of commodity trading from 1995–1998.
In 1996, Khan was made president of Alfa Eco. He reoriented the company to focus more on export and hydrocarbons. Today, Alfa Eco manages assets in healthcare, scientific research, alternative energy solutions, hi-tech, construction, metals and mining, security, infrastructure, education and agriculture. It has strategic partnerships all over the world, including in the United States, China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.
Alfa-Bank, the centrepiece of the Alfa ecosystem and Russia’s largest private bank, goes from strength to strength to this day. It holds total equity worth USD 8.67 billion and manages more than USD 61.85 billion in assets. The bank has more than 26,000 employees, 1 million retail customers, and 22 million commercial clients.
TNK-BP
In 1997, Alfa Group purchased a 40% stake in Tyumen Oil Company (TNK), and Khan was made a member of the Board of Directors. The deal was made under the AAR Consortium, represented by Alfa Group, Access industries (founded in 1986 by Ukrainian-born American–British businessman Len Blavatnik) and Renova Group (founded in 1990 by Russian–Israeli–Cypriot businessman Viktor Vekselberg).
Six years later, it was announced that TNK would be merging with British Petroleum (BP) to form TNK-BP. The strategic partnership would allow BP and the consortium of Russian businessman to keep their assets in Russia and Ukraine. The deal created what was then the world’s seventh largest oil producer. Ten years later, in 2013, Russian state-owned energy group Rosneft purchased TNK-BP for USD 56 billion.
LetterOne
The proceeds from the TNK-BP sale were used by the billionaire trio to set up a new investment vehicle, LetterOne (L1), in 2013. The asset management company is headquartered in Luxembourg and invests in a wide range of sectors, from healthcare and technology to energy and telecommunications. Major companies L1 has invested in include Turkey’s leading mobile phone operator Turkcell, Dutch-based telecom company VEON (formerly VimpelCom), German oil and gas operator Wintershall Dea, and multinational health food chain Holland & Barrett.
In March 2015, LetterOne purchased 100% of the Hamburg-headquartered international oil and gas operator DEA (Deutsche Erdoel AG) from German multinational energy company RWE for USD 7 billion. As of 2013, DEA’s natural gas production output stood at 2.6 billion cubic metres annually. The transaction underwent regulatory approval and was greenlit by Germany, the European Union, Ukraine and other bodies.
After sanctions were announced against a number of high-profile Russian businesspeople in 2022, German Khan stepped down from the board of directors of LetterOne, alongside Andrei Kosogov and Alexei Kuzmichev. Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman, who are subject to sanctions, had left the board just a few weeks earlier.
Creation of Wintershall Dea
German oil and gas company Wintershall (part of the major BASF concern) conducted a merger with DEA in 2019. This led to the creation of Europe’s largest independent oil and gas operator, Wintershall Dea. BASF received 67% of Wintershall Dea as a result of the deal. German Khan, Mikhail Fridman and Alexey Kuzmichev, who controlled DEA, were awarded 33% between them.
Net worth
A great deal of Khan’s net worth is linked to his asset management and investment fund activities, causing the total value of his assets to fluctuate. He was ranked as the 54th richest person in the world in 2008 with a net worth of USD 13.9 billion, though this fell significantly in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.
According to Forbes, his net worth is USD 8.2 billion as of 2023, making him the 249th richest person in the world. He has been consistently ranked among the 20 richest people in Russia over the last 15 years.
Philanthropic and community activities
German Khan is a notable philanthropist. He has actively supported Life Line, a charity for seriously ill children in Russia. It has been providing medicines and funding surgery since 2008, and claims to have saved the lives of 8,334 children since its founding.
Khan is Jewish, and many of the organizations he is involved with deal with the Russian Jewish community, the Russian-speaking Jewish diaspora, and Jewish heritage. He is a member of the presidium of the Russian Jewish Congress, and a supporter of the European Jewish Fund alongside Fridman and Aven, who are also Jewish.
In 2012, along with Fridman, Aven, Stan Polovets and Alexander Knaster, Khan instituted the Genesis Prize with a USD 100 million endowment to reward outstanding expressions of Jewish values or service to the Jewish community. One recipient receives a USD 1 million prize each year, and so far all the laureates have opted to donate their winnings to a philanthropic cause of their choice. Recipients of the prestigious award have included actor Michael Douglas, artist Anish Kapoor, legislator Ruth Bader Ginsburg and director Steven Spielberg.
Personal life
Khan has been interested in boxing from a young age, and credits the discipline required by the sport as major factor on building his self-confidence, work ethic and, ultimately, his business success. Another major outdoor passion is hunting, and he has a large gun and rifle collection. He is also a fan of rally, endurance and off-road driving.
Khan currently has Israeli and Russian citizenship. He has four children with his wife Angelika: Jakob, Eleanora, Eva and Lev. They have been based between Moscow and London for several years, and have a holiday residence in Monte Argentario, in the south of Italy’s Tuscany region.
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