FACTBOX: Metals billionaire Prokhorov buying into RenCap
(Reuters) - Flamboyant billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov's investment firm on Monday announced plans to acquire a 50 percent stake in Renaissance Capital, one of Russia's largest investment banks, for $500 million.
Following are some facts about Mikhail Prokhorov, ranked Russia's fifth richest man with an estimated fortune of $22.6 billion by U.S. magazine Forbes:
* Prokhorov, 43, started his business empire in the 1980s by selling jeans, one of the most coveted items on the Soviet black market. Today, he is estimated to have accumulated a cash war chest of up to $10 billion.
* He served at state International Bank for Economic Cooperation from 1989-1992, where he met his business partner Vladimir Potanin.
* The two men set up a number of investment vehicles including ONEXIM Bank and Interros. In the mid-1990s, they acquired the world's largest nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.MM) at a rock bottom price in the loans-for-shares auction.
The auctions became famous after groups of well-connected businessmen lent money to the indebted state and took shares in some of the country's most lucrative enterprises as collateral. They became the ultimate owners of those enterprises as the state never redeemed the loans.
* Prokhorov served as Norilsk's chairman from 2001 to 2007. The company's market value rose to over $40 billion from a few billion dollars in the early part of the decade. Norilsk became the majority owner of U.S. sole producer of nickel and palladium Stillwater Mining (SWC.N).
* The 2-metre-tall, unmarried businessman, who regularly makes headlines in tabloids, resigned from his position at Norilsk following a brief detention in a prostitution probe in the French Alps in January 2007.
He blamed unnamed competitors for what he called a plot against him and vowed to never return or do business in France unless authorities there apologize for the incident.
He is nevertheless regularly rumored to be behind some of the most expensive property transactions in the French Riviera, a place to which he publicly acknowledges his affection.
* Shortly after the detention, Prokhorov and Potanin agreed to split their assets. Both said it was not linked to the incident in France but to disagreements over the business empire's development strategy.
Potanin had been due to keep Norilsk, while Prokhorov was eager to keep power and other assets of the empire, but because the two men could not agree on the valuations, the divorce is still not over.
The split became increasingly acrimonious after Prokhorov agreed to sell a 25 percent plus one share stake in Norilsk to aluminum giant UC Rusal, controlled by one of closest allies of the Kremlin businessman Oleg Deripaska.
Deripaska and Potanin are now involved in a fierce battle over the strategy at Norilsk, while Prokhorov keeps a low profile.
The sale of various assets to Deripaska and Potanin allowed Prokhorov to accumulate $7 billion to $10 billion in cash, according to various estimates. He has vowed to spend some of this money on distressed real estate firms as he predicts the industry would be among the first to be hit by the Russian and global liquidity crisis.
(Reporting by Alfred Kuepers and Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by Hans Peters)
