Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko (russian: Геннадий Николаевич Тимченко, ''also spelled'' Guennadi Timtchenko; born 9 November 1952) is a
Russian oligarch and
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
businessman.
He founded and owns the private investment firm
Volga Group. Previously he was a co-owner of
Gunvor Group.
Timchenko has been close friends with Russian leader
Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s.
In 1991, Putin gave Timchenko an oil export license.
Timchenko subsequently founded Gunvor, which would go on to export billions of dollars-worth of Russian oil.
Timchenko's investment firm Volga Group is a major shareholder in the natural gas giant
Novatek.
The
Pandora Papers leaks revealed that a Timchenko firm, which played a key role in the Novatek investment, obtained massive loans through anonymous offshore shell companies.
Timchenko was sanctioned by
the US over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. He faced further sanctions just before the February
2022 invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
by
the UK government.
As of March 2022, Timchenko was ranked 205th on the ''
Bloomberg Billionaires Index'', with an estimated fortune of US$10.3 Billion
and making him the sixth richest person in Russia.
He is known for being the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
Kontinental Hockey League,
and President of the
SKA Saint Petersburg
The Hockey Club SKA (russian: Спортивный клуб СКА), often referred to as SKA Saint Petersburg and literally as the Sports Club of the Army, is a Russian professional ice hockey club based in Saint Petersburg. They are members o ...
ice hockey club.