Vladimir Gusinsky

Early life and education

Gusinsky was born into a Jewish family in Moscow on 6 October 1952. In 1969, Gusinsky enrolled in Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas, however, he did not finish his education there. He joined the USSR Army in 1973 as a Junior Sergeant in the Chemical Intelligence Troops. In 1975, after being demobilized, Gusinsky enrolled in the State Institute for the Study of Theatrical Arts (Russian: ГИТИС English: GITIS). He graduated in 1979 with his graduating diploma work on the staging of "Tartuffe" by Molière, in the Tula State Dramatic Theater.

Early career

1986

Stage Director for the Ted Turner Goodwill Games in the Kremlin Palace.

Founded one of the first cooperatives following Perestroika - Cooperative "Metal" - which started to produce metal garages and later copper bracelets and other fashion jewelry in mass quantities.

1988

Founded the cooperative "INFEKS" under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR, which engaged in consulting of foreign companies entering into the Russian market.

1989

Created the joint venture "Most", together with APCO (a consulting company owned by the Arnold & Porter Law Firm in Washington DC).

Gusinsky established "Most Bank", one of the first and one of the largest private retail banks in Russia. The first ATM allowing cash withdrawals in Russia was installed by Most Bank in Russia in 1994.

1992

Founded a holding company "Most Group". All of Gusinsky's business assets, totaling 42 companies, including Most Bank (Russian: Мост-банк) and a number of construction companies, were integrated into this holding structure.

Involvement in media

1993:

Gusinsky, together with a number of leading journalists, established Sevodnya, a daily political newspaper.

In the end of 1993, Gusinsky, together with several leading TV journalists and media experts – such as Igor Malashenko, Evgeni Kiselev and Oleg Dobrodeev – founded the first private television channel in Russia: NTV. NTV's main focus was independent and uncensored news and unbiased political shows, and their slogan was "News Is Our Profession".

1994:

The First Chechen War started in 1994. NTV provided pro-Chechen coverage of the war and was often critical of the Russian government.

In December 1994, the President's Secret Service was ordered to attack Gusinsky's offices. As a result, Gusinsky and his family had to leave Russia. Gusinsky was able to return in May 1995, while during his absence NTV and all his other media assets continued their independent editorial policy and coverage of the war.

1996:

Gusinsky was one of the founders of the Russian Jewish Congress, and in January 1996 was elected its president.

In February 1996, in Davos, during the World Economic Forum, together with Boris Berezovsky, he organized a meeting of Russia's most prominent businessmen. The group met to decide how to support the Presidential bid of Yeltsin and to prevent the communists from returning to power. Further, the group contacted Anatoli Chubais, the creator and advocate of Privatization, and convinced him to lead and manage Yeltsin's presidential campaign.

The elections for the President of Russian Federation took place in June 1996 (first round). President Yeltsin was elected in the second round of the election (July 1996). Many international and domestic observers considered these to be the first elections in Russia to approach the western democratic standards.

Consolidation and development of media assets

1996:

Gazprom, the state owned natural gas giant, became a 30% shareholder of NTV.

A US based media investor Capital Group became a 5% shareholder in NTV and 5% shareholder in TNT - a regional network.

1997:

"Most Group" consolidated all its media assets in a new entity - "Media Most". Gusinsky resigned from his positions in "Most Group" and "Most Bank", became president of "Media Most", and focused all his efforts on the development of the media business.

The new media holding company included NTV, TNT, NTV Plus, Echo Moscow, Publishing house Seven Days, other radio stations, internet development companies, movie studios and media design companies.

"Media Most" was the largest media holding in Russia and, based on the number of viewers and readers, and possibly one of the largest in Europe. Gusinsky was hailed as the "Rupert Murdoch" of Russia.

While Gusinsky never participated in privatization – all his assets were created from scratch, in 1997, Gusinsky made his first, and last, attempt at privatization – he bid for the privatizing of the state owned telecommunication giant Svyazinvest. The bid ended unsuccessfully for Gusinsky, and many commentators have accused Gusinsky of using his media assets to influence his bid and it resulted in a large public scandal.

In mid-1997, a banking consortium led by Credit Suisse First Boston was preparing NTV for a public offering on NASDAQ at a valuation in 1.2 - 1.4 billion US Dollars, with a large portion of the proceeds from the IPO to be used for development of the business.

1998:

The 1997 Asian Economic Crisis severely impacted the Russian economy in 1998. This led to Russia defaulting on its domestic debts and declaring a moratorium on payments to foreign creditors in August 1998. The financial default put a stop to the NTV's attempted IPO.

Confrontation with Kremlin

1999

An alliance that included President Yeltsin, Yeltsin's relatives, and a group of powerful businessmen, publicly known as the "Family", brought in Vladimir Putin as the successor to President Yeltsin. At the same time, Gusinsky positioned himself outside of the "Family" and as a result he was accused of supporting the election of anti-Kremlin alliance of Primakov & Luzhkov. This was the beginning of the conflict between Gusinsky, the Family, and Putin.

In September 1999, there were a number of terrorist attacks in Moscow and other cities in Russia. Several buildings were bombed and many people were killed. The Kremlin took the position that Chechen separatists were responsible for the bombings. Around the same time, a group of neighbors residing in an apartment building found a large quantity of explosives in the basement of their building, and reported it to FSB. At that time a group of independent journalist investigators exposed certain facts that connected the explosives with individuals connected with FSB. Gusinsky's NTV decided to take an independent stance and launched an in-depth public journalistic investigation – investigating the possibility that FSB was staging explosions in an effort to influence the upcoming elections. Gusinsky was given an ultimatum to remove this "independent investigation" from NTV, or else face the consequences. Gusinsky refused to end the investigation. Furthermore, a number of independent commentators accused the Kremlin and Putin of organizing the explosions, prompting the new Chechen war, with the goal of increasing Putin's popularity in anticipation of elections. This was the breaking point in the relationship between Gusinsky and the Kremlin, the Family, and Yeltsin's successor Putin.

On 31 December 1999, President Yeltsin resigned, and Vladimir Putin became the acting president of Russia.

2000

In January, Gusinsky was elected as the vice president of the World Jewish Congress.

With the Yeltsin's resignation bringing Putin to Acting Presidency, and the subsequent election in May 2000 that brought Putin to power, one of the first publicly criticized acts of new president Putin was the commencement of an investigation against Gusinsky with the goal of putting NTV under government control and effectively silencing the opposition.

Legal confrontation with Kremlin, and later life

2001

In January, Gusinsky filed a case against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights for violations of his rights and freedoms.

In April, the National Court of Spain rejected the Russian Federation's request for Gusinsky's extradition. The Spanish court noted that the charges against Gusinsky were politically motivated and in fact did not even constitute a crime – the National Court specifically stated "It is possible to observe in the documents furnished by [the applicant]... "certain noteworthy and peculiar circumstances which are unusual in the sphere of judicial claims for fraud and which, although they do not in themselves lead to the conclusion that we are dealing with an irregular claim filed for a political purpose, compel the Court to consider [the applicant's] argument as not completely without foundation as far as the facts and interferences are concerned and as not inconceivable or discountable on the basis of logical criteria and experience." Gusinsky was released.

In mid April, the Russian Federation conducted raids on the offices of Media Most and NTV.

Only days after the National Court of Spain decided that charges against Gusinsky were politically motivated and not a crime, the Russian Federation commenced new criminal proceedings against Gusinsky and issued a new arrest warrant, alleging money laundering of money owed to Gazprom. Again the Russian Federation submitted the request to arrest Gusinsky in his home in Spain, but Gusinsky was not present – he left for Israel. Several months later the National Court of Spain dismissed the Russian Federation's new request as baseless.

In July, the supervisory board of Interpol recommended to stop any further actions against Gusinsky based on Russian Federation requests. Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, described the case against Gusinsky as having "predominantly political character". In August, Israel refused to extradite Gusinsky to Russia.

2002

In May, Gusinsky started a new television project – RTV International or RTVi, that continued what NTV International started – providing unbiased Russian language news for Russian speakers worldwide.

Other investments

Gusinsky had a shareholding in the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball team for a period of three and a half years, acquiring 60% of the team in November 2000.

Until November 2008, Gusinsky held 27% of the shares in the prominent Israeli second largest newspaper Maariv, which he exchanged with Bank Hapolaim to settle a debt to the bank.

He was one of the main forces behind the Moscow Holocaust museum, having lost several family members to the Holocaust.

Property in Spain

In San Roque at Sotogrande,

in the Province of Cádiz, Gusinsky purchased during the early 1990s Krusero (Russian: "Крусеро") a 536-square-metre (5,770 sq ft) luxurious villa on a 3,500-square-metre (38,000 sq ft) property.

During the 1990s, Gusinsky stated that Gibraltar is his "financial homeland" and that Spain is his "second home". He often travels by boat for the 13-mile (21 km) trip from Sotogrande to Gibraltar where his Gulfstream jet is kept.