Biography
Alexey Mordashov is the majority shareholder in steel company Severstal, which he ran as CEO for 19 years before resigning in 2015. Hit by sanctions in 2022, he immediately transferred ownership of key assets, including shares of leisure company TUI and mining outfit Nordgold. Severstal, in which he still has a 77% stake, lost more than $400 million in 2022 due to Western sanctions, according to Mordashov. Severstal sold off two U.S. steel plants in 2014, withdrawing from the market at a time of rising tensions between Russia and the West, and turned its focus to its domestic business. The son of mill workers, Mordashov rose to become the finance director of a steel mill. When the plant's elderly director instructed him to acquire shares to keep them from an outsider, Mordashov kept most of them for himself.