Who is Maxim Demin and where did he make his money?

kirsikka

kirsikka

UTC Legend
First up, there's huge hypocrisy in me posting this thread. You wouldn't have to search too far in the site history to find me singing the praises of Max and the money he's invested in us. What his backing has done for the club has been almost unimaginable. The way he has gone about it, quiet profile and trusting his managers (the wife team talk being an unfortunate early misstep from which they clearly learnt), is precisely what you want. Let the football people do the football stuff, keep you gob shut and stay out of the limelight.

All that shouldn't stop me from asking questions though. The world events from earlier in the year made me wonder again on this subject I've previously glossed over. Just where and how did Max make his money? Given the scrutiny that will be on us as a PL club in the next eight months and with Roman gone, I can see a journalist digging to see what they can find. No harm in being pre-armed in such a situation so I got to work with Google. Equally to looking to defend him, if there is something uncomfortable out there we shouldn't shy away from it.

Having said staying out of the limelight was a good call in the past, I do think a friendly puff piece where he speaks openly might do him the world of good in the months ahead.

I started by looking for the source of his cash but ended up finding other bits about him as a person. This may all be generally known but lots was new to me.

Pre-Tatneft
Before joining Tatneft, Demin was working as a consultant for Arther Andersen. Aged 27, he joined Tatneft because he had a special set of skills they needed at that particular time.

Tatneft
"In 1997, 27-year-old Arthur Andersen consultant Maxim Demin moved to Tatneft, the main enterprise of the Republic of Tatarstan. At that time, the oil company needed financing for the modernization of production and it needed a specialist in interaction with foreign investors and banks with knowledge of foreign languages. Demin knew English and Japanese and understood American financial statements. After the 1998 crisis, he participated in a deal to restructure Tatneft's debt to Western banks ($354 million), arrange several large loans, and in 2000 became financial adviser to the company's CEO Shafagat Takhautdinov. In 2002, thanks to Demin's team, Tatneft became the first oil company that was able to attract a long loan - for a period of five years. A pool of investors led by Credit Suisse First Boston provided the company with $200 million. "
(via Google Translate)
https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Is reported to have helped raise a record breaking bank loan from western banks to a Russian oil company during that period (https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/youllnevertalkalone/557422.html) so achieved some success there.

2000-2005 - Assistant to General Director of Tatneft
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20150506/283369060586998

In 2014 is reported as owning 14 million shares in Tatneft (https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/youllnevertalkalone/557422.html).

AK Bars Bank
According to this, Tatneft owned 29.98% of AK Bars Bank in 2005.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058255/000119312505141948/d20f.htm
At this point, Demin is reported as being a director/senior manager at Tatneft. He's name checked as so in the above linked document.

According to this, by 2008 he had a 7.34% shareholding in the bank:
https://bankfs.ru/cs/credit-card---...a-banka-klyuchevye-polozhitelnye-momenty.html

He was again reported as owning a stake in AK Bars Bank
https://russianfootballnews.com/afc-bournemouth-and-their-untypical-russian-owner-maxim-demin/


Zenit Bank
Was founded in 1994 by Tatneft and in 2007 Zenit still seems to have been closely tied to Tatneft, where Max had been working. For example, this mentions significant funding from Tatneft. It also refers to it as the 22nd largest bank in Russia at the time:
https://www.fitchratings.com/resear...-zenit-to-bbb-rus-outlook-positive-24-04-2007

That also states Tatneft owned 28% of the Zenit shares directly and about 24% indirectly through it's share in IPCGF (see below) which owned 50% of Zenit.

Onto Max, in 2008 he's mentioned here as a director (and possible owner depending how you read it) of Zenit Bank.
https://www.banki.ru/news/engnews/?id=500866

In 2011 he was reported as being the co-owner of the bank Zenit
http://russia-ic.com/news/show/13129

It's still an active bank in 2022 with 108 branches and, I imagine, suffering some impact on the back of the the sanctions - https://www.zenit.ru/en/ However (see below) Max indicated he sold up his financial holdings some time ago.

Independent Insurance Group
Demin is reported to have invested in this Russian insurance company in 2007 although says his finance type investments were all done on a passive basis with recommendations coming from Alexei Sokolov.

“Before the financial crisis of 2008, investments in the financial sector were interesting,” says Demin, “I lived abroad, was a passive investor and completely relied on the recommendations of Alexei Sokolov, he was an expert in the banking industry.” Alexei was a fellow shareholder in Tatneft.
(quote source https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc via Google Translate)

International PetroChemical Growth Fund (IPCGF)
This one is tricky to get my head around. From what I can decipher (probably incorrectly) Tatneft and Zenit formed the fund and Max was part of that.
https://www.banki.ru/news/engnews/?id=500866

By 2011 IPCGF owned 43% of Zenit but was then wound up.
https://www.banki.ru/news/engnews/?id=2901648

See also further up in the Zenit section for a mention of the fund. As for what IPCGF did, not massively clear but I did find this mention of holding a 51% stake in OJSC Taneko, which was constructing a 'greenfield Nizhnekamsk refinery and petrochemical complex' due to open in 2011-12. This seems to indicate is opened - http://www.taneco.ru/en/about/. No idea what would have happened to any shareholding related to IPCGF though.

Wintel
Started in 2005 in London, there are two Wintel companies. Wintel Petrochemicals for energy trading and Wintel Holdings for (at a guess based on his interview quote below) buying UK real estate. Demin resigned as a director in 2018 but they are ultimately owned by a company in Guernsey where he may well retain all the ownership. I suspect this is were the oft-quoted wealth of £100 million comes from as that was the value of the reported assets of the company at some point.

Interesting that the reason he moved to London is given as "The wife wanted her son to be educated in England, and then he had to go to first grade,” the businessman recalls in an interview with Forbes, comfortably seated on the terrace of the Dolder Grand Hotel overlooking Lake Zurich (he also has an office in the Swiss city) . “I had a plan to go into oil trading and English real estate.” His company Wintel Petrochemicals Limited began to work in the oil and petrochemicals market with Tatneft, small oil companies from Tatarstan, companies from Egypt, China, India and until recently from Ukraine. Oil trading, according to Wintel reports, brought Demin more than £13.3 million in net profit from 2005 to 2013. He also organizes debt financing secured by oil. In 2013, he participated in arranging a $2 billion loan from HypoVereinsbank (UniCredit group) for his client." (more on that trading below). (quote source https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc via Google Translate)

If, like me, you're wondering what energy trading actually involves and where they (and Max) make their money I found this really interesting:

https://data.cbonds.info/publication/Lapitski.pdf

It's the paperwork of the Tatneft loan application for US$2 billion in 2011 mentioned above. Scroll down to page 5 and they explain their oil exporting model.

JSC Tatneft in Russia gets the oil and exports it to their subsidiary in Europe, Tatneft Europe AG. Some of this is then sold to the final oil purchaser, a company called Vitol SA based in Geneva . However, some of it is sold to Wintel Petrochemicals Ltd who then sell it on to Vitol SA.

tatneft-loan.jpg

I freely admit I know the square route of diddly squat about oil trading so can't comment on what value Wintel add for their part in the process. However, this was published last month in Switzerland:
https://www.bazonline.ch/so-verschl...-geschaeft-mit-russischem-oel-ab-221386433017

It's a slightly vague piece and I had to rely on Google Translate which I assume made it even vaguer. You need to register to read it.

The leader para translates as:
"The Russian oil company Tatneft sold a whole year's production to the Geneva dealer Vitol. Why was a company in the UK intervening?"

The piece itself doesn't appear to have any real substance but it feels to me like the beady eye of the media is starting to look a little more closely at Max.
 
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Vesta Bank
In 2015 Forbes reported that he still owned a shared in a small bank called Vesta but, if it's this one, then even if he still held a share then, it was sold on in 2020 - https://tadviser.com/index.php/Company:AKB_Form_(formerly_Vesta_Investment_Bank,_VestaBank)

Air Studios
In 2018 it was reported he bought Air Studios in Hampstead, so he's been diversifying his interests in UK businesses it seems.
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/air-studios-sold-to-afc-bournemouth-s-russian-owner-maxim-3606818


AFCB
Talking about purchasing AFCB, Denim said:
"Mitchell began to invite Demin to matches, and then asked for a loan of about £400,000 - the club could be excluded from the competition for non-payment of taxes. In 2011, the club was unable to repay the debt, and, having paid an additional £450,000, the Russian became the owner of a 50% stake in the club. “I didn’t think about this decision for a long time,” says Demin. - I myself have always loved football, in my youth I supported Torpedo Moscow, my son loves football. For me it was a new game - what can be done with the club." (again from https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc via Google Translate)

So Mitchell was already on the hook to him for a loan taken to pay a tax debt. Not sure I knew that. And EM couldn't repay it so he put some more in and took the equity. Not quite the way it was portrayed by Mitchell. Also, I didn't realise Max had a son until I started this, but great to hear about his lifelong love of football. Maybe this was all common knowledge. Fingers crossed his son also loves football and is an AFCB fan! I guess, working backwards, the son must be about 22 now so ready to take on the reigns of power a la Tom Mitchell soon. Hope he has a copy of Football Manager 2022 ready, and a dvd player.

Also, talking about Mitchell's antics on the pitch and that famous Southampton quote Demin said:

“I didn’t like it all, to put it mildly,” says Demin, “but it took me about a year to figure out what was what.” Sourced from the same article.

Personal wealth
Listed as 480th in the rating of the magazine "Finance." as of February 2011, with a capital estimate of $160 million. The translation isn't helping too much there but my guess is that's something like the Russian equivalent of the Sunday Times rich list.
(https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/youllnevertalkalone/557422.html)

Before the banking crisis of 2008 Demin's financial investments were estimated to be worth USD $250 million but he sold up when the crisis hit. One of his fellow investors said "We were very satisfied with what we got". Demin also assured Forbes that he had divested himself of 6.6% stake in another fund in 2015.

Add to that the reported $13 million profit at Wintel (to 2013... plus plenty more since), the Tatneft shares (if he hung on to them), whatever happened to the investment in IPCFG or that refinery and quite possible a whole bunch of stuff of which I have no knowledge, the value in the Wintel business and all of a sudden I think his wealth has been vastly underestimated.

Finger in the air time, I'd put him north of £400 million which means his investment with us isn't as overwhelming against his wealth as it was sometimes reported. It could even be way beyond that... still hard to tell really so it's just guesswork but I'm confident the £100m is massively underselling him.


Personal interviews/appearances
We know he's very private and so very little has been seen of him. Apart from the forbes.ru interview above, there are three roughly 20 second interview moments with him in this video clip (2:10, 5:18 and 7:26). You'll need to brush up on your Russian though:

I really can't remember if we've seen that YouTube clip before. If it's something new I'll ask a Russian speaking colleague to translate his parts for us to find out what he says.


At the end of all that where are we? Well, seems like Max was a right place, right time, right knowledge to get involved in an oil company in Russia. But he was bringing actual skills to the table. He then invested in finance and, if I'm reading it correctly, that's where his fortune really took off even if he no longer holds those investments. Then he struck a sweet trading deal with Tatneft and has been doing very well with that whilst investing in a few other places here and there.

Know anything else or want to make a correction? Drop it in below as I can see this is missing a lot of details.

Also, if you're reading Max (if he even knows this site exists) and want to break that silence with a friendly interviewer I'd be delighted to oblige. Send me a PM :grinning:
 
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kirsikka said:
Personal interviews/appearances
We know he's very private and so very little has been seen of him. Apart from the forbes.ru interview above, there are three roughly 20 second interview moments with him in this video clip (2:10, 5:18 and 7:26). You'll need to brush up on your Russian though:

I really can't remember if we've seen that YouTube clip before. If it's something new I'll ask a Russian speaking colleague to translate his parts for us to find out what he says.
Click to expand...

I’ll confess it’s far too late in the evening for me to read and digest all of that, so will attempt to give it a go tomorrow.

On the Russian interview, I was given a translation at the time. Obviously cannot verify it’s accuracy but as it was 9 years ago if it was wildly inaccurate I’m sure someone would have said at the time (I hope)…

https://bournemouth.vitalfootball.co.uk/maxim-demins-first-interview/amp/
 
DJ said:
I’ll confess it’s far too late in the evening for me to read and digest all of that, so will attempt to give it a go tomorrow.

On the Russian interview, I was given a translation at the time. Obviously cannot verify it’s accuracy but as it was 9 years ago if it was wildly inaccurate I’m sure someone would have said at the time (I hope)…

https://bournemouth.vitalfootball.co.uk/maxim-demins-first-interview/amp/
Click to expand...

Perfect. I can leave my colleague in peace. Cheers.
 
Wow, such research. Only 6:00 p.m. here so brain cells still working at near-optimum ...... will decline slowly from here.

Great to have you back, k.
 
Well researched. Dare say he may look to sell the club in the near future as he apparently has more nearly a third of his personal wealth tied up in the club.

Moving, and making money will be much more difficult for him (seeing as he does much of his business in Russia), given the increased scrutiny the conflict has placed on anything Russian.
 
does this mean he's only worth $400m and likely to want his money back sooner rather than later, and explains why we haven't signed anyone?
sorry, I'm a bit thick
 
kirsikka said:
First up, there's huge hypocrisy in me posting this thread. You wouldn't have to search too far in the site history to find me singing the praises of Max and the money he's invested in us. What his backing has done for the club has been almost unimaginable. The way he has gone about it, quiet profile and trusting his managers (the wife team talk being an unfortunate early misstep from which they clearly learnt), is precisely what you want. Let the football people do the football stuff, keep you gob shut and stay out of the limelight.

All that shouldn't stop me from asking questions though. The world events from earlier in the year made me wonder again on this subject I've previously glossed over. Just where and how did Max make his money? Given the scrutiny that will be on us as a PL club in the next eight months and with Roman gone, I can see a journalist digging to see what they can find. No harm in being pre-armed in such a situation so I got to work with Google. Equally to looking to defend him, if there is something uncomfortable out there we shouldn't shy away from it.

Having said staying out of the limelight was a good call in the past, I do think a friendly puff piece where he speaks openly might do him the world of good in the months ahead.

I started by looking for the source of his cash but ended up finding other bits about him as a person. This may all be generally known but lots was new to me.

Pre-Tatneft
Before joining Tatneft, Demin was working as a consultant for Arther Andersen. Aged 27, he joined Tatneft because he had a special set of skills they needed at that particular time.

Tatneft
"In 1997, 27-year-old Arthur Andersen consultant Maxim Demin moved to Tatneft, the main enterprise of the Republic of Tatarstan. At that time, the oil company needed financing for the modernization of production and it needed a specialist in interaction with foreign investors and banks with knowledge of foreign languages. Demin knew English and Japanese and understood American financial statements. After the 1998 crisis, he participated in a deal to restructure Tatneft's debt to Western banks ($354 million), arrange several large loans, and in 2000 became financial adviser to the company's CEO Shafagat Takhautdinov. In 2002, thanks to Demin's team, Tatneft became the first oil company that was able to attract a long loan - for a period of five years. A pool of investors led by Credit Suisse First Boston provided the company with $200 million. "
(via Google Translate)
https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Is reported to have helped raise a record breaking bank loan from western banks to a Russian oil company during that period (https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/youllnevertalkalone/557422.html) so achieved some success there.

2000-2005 - Assistant to General Director of Tatneft
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20150506/283369060586998

In 2014 is reported as owning 14 million shares in Tatneft (https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/youllnevertalkalone/557422.html).

AK Bars Bank
According to this, Tatneft owned 29.98% of AK Bars Bank in 2005.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058255/000119312505141948/d20f.htm
At this point, Demin is reported as being a director/senior manager at Tatneft. He's name checked as so in the above linked document.

According to this, by 2008 he had a 7.34% shareholding in the bank:
https://bankfs.ru/cs/credit-card---...a-banka-klyuchevye-polozhitelnye-momenty.html

He was again reported as owning a stake in AK Bars Bank
https://russianfootballnews.com/afc-bournemouth-and-their-untypical-russian-owner-maxim-demin/


Zenit Bank
Was founded in 1994 by Tatneft and in 2007 Zenit still seems to have been closely tied to Tatneft, where Max had been working. For example, this mentions significant funding from Tatneft. It also refers to it as the 22nd largest bank in Russia at the time:
https://www.fitchratings.com/resear...-zenit-to-bbb-rus-outlook-positive-24-04-2007

That also states Tatneft owned 28% of the Zenit shares directly and about 24% indirectly through it's share in IPCGF (see below) which owned 50% of Zenit.

Onto Max, in 2008 he's mentioned here as a director (and possible owner depending how you read it) of Zenit Bank.
https://www.banki.ru/news/engnews/?id=500866

In 2011 he was reported as being the co-owner of the bank Zenit
http://russia-ic.com/news/show/13129

It's still an active bank in 2022 with 108 branches and, I imagine, suffering some impact on the back of the the sanctions - https://www.zenit.ru/en/ However (see below) Max indicated he sold up his financial holdings some time ago.

Independent Insurance Group
Demin is reported to have invested in this Russian insurance company in 2007 although says his finance type investments were all done on a passive basis with recommendations coming from Alexei Sokolov.

“Before the financial crisis of 2008, investments in the financial sector were interesting,” says Demin, “I lived abroad, was a passive investor and completely relied on the recommendations of Alexei Sokolov, he was an expert in the banking industry.” Alexei was a fellow shareholder in Tatneft.
(quote source https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc via Google Translate)

International PetroChemical Growth Fund (IPCGF)
This one is tricky to get my head around. From what I can decipher (probably incorrectly) Tatneft and Zenit formed the fund and Max was part of that.
https://www.banki.ru/news/engnews/?id=500866

By 2011 IPCGF owned 43% of Zenit but was then wound up.
https://www.banki.ru/news/engnews/?id=2901648

See also further up in the Zenit section for a mention of the fund. As for what IPCGF did, not massively clear but I did find this mention of holding a 51% stake in OJSC Taneko, which was constructing a 'greenfield Nizhnekamsk refinery and petrochemical complex' due to open in 2011-12. This seems to indicate is opened - http://www.taneco.ru/en/about/. No idea what would have happened to any shareholding related to IPCGF though.

Wintel
Started in 2005 in London, there are two Wintel companies. Wintel Petrochemicals for energy trading and Wintel Holdings for (at a guess based on his interview quote below) buying UK real estate. Demin resigned as a director in 2018 but they are ultimately owned by a company in Guernsey where he may well retain all the ownership. I suspect this is were the oft-quoted wealth of £100 million comes from as that was the value of the reported assets of the company at some point.

Interesting that the reason he moved to London is given as "The wife wanted her son to be educated in England, and then he had to go to first grade,” the businessman recalls in an interview with Forbes, comfortably seated on the terrace of the Dolder Grand Hotel overlooking Lake Zurich (he also has an office in the Swiss city) . “I had a plan to go into oil trading and English real estate.” His company Wintel Petrochemicals Limited began to work in the oil and petrochemicals market with Tatneft, small oil companies from Tatarstan, companies from Egypt, China, India and until recently from Ukraine. Oil trading, according to Wintel reports, brought Demin more than £13.3 million in net profit from 2005 to 2013. He also organizes debt financing secured by oil. In 2013, he participated in arranging a $2 billion loan from HypoVereinsbank (UniCredit group) for his client." (more on that trading below). (quote source https://www.forbes.ru/finansy/igrok...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc via Google Translate)

If, like me, you're wondering what energy trading actually involves and where they (and Max) make their money I found this really interesting:

https://data.cbonds.info/publication/Lapitski.pdf

It's the paperwork of the Tatneft loan application for US$2 billion in 2011 mentioned above. Scroll down to page 5 and they explain their oil exporting model.

JSC Tatneft in Russia gets the oil and exports it to their subsidiary in Europe, Tatneft Europe AG. Some of this is then sold to the final oil purchaser, a company called Vitol SA based in Geneva . However, some of it is sold to Wintel Petrochemicals Ltd who then sell it on to Vitol SA.

View attachment 8299

I freely admit I know the square route of diddly squat about oil trading so can't comment on what value Wintel add for their part in the process. However, this was published last month in Switzerland:
https://www.bazonline.ch/so-verschl...-geschaeft-mit-russischem-oel-ab-221386433017

It's a slightly vague piece and I had to rely on Google Translate which I assume made it even vaguer. You need to register to read it.

The leader para translates as:
"The Russian oil company Tatneft sold a whole year's production to the Geneva dealer Vitol. Why was a company in the UK intervening?"

The piece itself doesn't appear to have any real substance but it feels to me like the beady eye of the media is starting to look a little more closely at Max.
Click to expand...

Christ Alive ! ... He could've bought,
Miller's Pie place, theres a thought,
then he cross the road at Sterte..overt'bridge...
..Poole Stadium...
...or 'up on Hill.. theres Tower Park,
..please don't keep us in the Dark !
 
That's really interesting and thank you for putting in the work.

Just to answer one question re traders.

If you speak with a commodity trader they will say that they provide a worthwhile job, giving producers certainty over their future income and giving buyers access to parcels of goods.

However, the majority of traders are in fact speculators, adding little to the value chain. The main aim is to bet on the future price of a good, in the hope that you get it right.

much of the work is analysis, like fund managers, much of it is mathematics, like bookmakers.

The main mistake people make when thinking about trading is to think that what they look for is certainty in the market, in fact, they make much more money when times and markets are volatile. Like now. If Max does still have shares in a Russian trading company then he'll be making money hand over fist. The Chinese, Indians and even the EU are still buying Russian energy.

Traders thrive based on their access to information and the software they use is something to behold. I've seen a couple of these guys working and they are as far from Wall Street as you can imagine. Serious, hard-working and some might say a tiny bit boring. One friend of mine was a serious mathemetician, made an absolute shed load by the time he was 25 then retired from trading (that seems like the shelf-life) then went back to uni to get a pure maths doctorate.
 
New Forest Cherry said:
does this mean he's only worth $400m and likely to want his money back sooner rather than later, and explains why we haven't signed anyone?
sorry, I'm a bit thick
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t pretend to have knowledge to answer but the Athletic ran a story on July 5th that we have factored future tv money to get cash now. We have done this with Macquarie before so we should not be alarmed at this as long as we use the cash wisely.

Thus, I don’t see why we wouldn’t have cash now to buy players and, of course, many deals are structured so cash gets paid in instalments rather than upfront.
 
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