The Rise and Fall of Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were declared guilty by a judge at the culmination of their second new trial in a Moscow district court on Monday.


Mikhail Khodorkovsky was born June 26, 1963, in Moscow, studied at the Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology, where he started building a career as a communist functionary, becoming deputy head of the Komsomol (the Communist Youth League) organization at his university.Later, using his Komsomol connections, Khodorkovsky opened his first business in 1986, a private cafe, and then in 1987, the Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth. The center imported and resold computers, as well as a range of other products.

By 1988, he had built an import-export business with a turnover of $10 million a year.

In 1989, Khodorkovsky and his business partners established the Menatep Bank.

In December 1995, as a result of the so-called shares-for-loans auctions, Khodorkovsky's Menatep Group took control of the Yukos oil company. A few years later, he was probably Russia's richest man.

Khodorkovsky and his company initially earned a reputation for dubious business practices, including diluting stakes held by foreign shareholders, notably the American investor Kenneth Dart.

After the 1998 financial crisis Yukos tumbled in value, but Khodorkovsky held on to the firm, dragging minority shareholders into courts to keep control of his empire.

Just two years later however, he was the darling of the Western stock markets, with a commitment to corporate governance, and an image makeover for himself - gone was the moustache and thick-framed glasses.

In April 2003, Khodorkovsky announced Yukos's merger with another oil giant, Sibneft, creating an empire that at its height produced more oil than OPEC member Qatar. The merger later came undone, but discussions continued on other possible mergers including with Western companies.