Makhmudov is the founder of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company, Russia's second-largest coal miner and copper producer. The billionaire also owns stakes in railway carmaker Transmashholding as well as the logistics provider to the oil industry Transoil. UMMC reported revenue of $3.2 billion in 2023 under Russian accounting standards.
The majority of Makhmudov's fortune is derived from his interests in metals, manufacturing and transportation, the biggest of which is his controlling stake in Ural Mining & Metallurgical Co. is Russia's second-largest coal and copper miner, according to its website.
UMMC had revenue of $3.2 billion in 2023, according to Spark-Interfax, and is valued using the average price-to-sales multiple of three publicly traded peer companies. He's credited with 40% of the business, based on disclosure documents confirmed by company's representative.
Makhmudov's transportation assets include a stake in railcar manufacturer Transmashholding, which is valued using the average price-to-sales multiple of two comparable publicly traded peers: Alstom and Siemens.
He also controls Vostochny Port and port Rosterminalugol, according to reports in local media and the Spark-Interfax database.
Makhmudov withdrew as a beneficiary of UMMC, Vostochny Port and Rosterminalugol in March 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Stakes in these companies remain credited to him in this analysis to reflect his status as the founder and key investor.
Makhmudov declined to comment on his net worth through his personal assistant.
Iskandar Makhmudov was born in 1963 in Bukhara, a southern Uzbekistan province located along the ancient Silk Road trading route. After attending Tashkent State University, Makhmudov, who speaks Arabic, worked for the Soviet Union's Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations as an interpreter in Libya and Iraq. In Libya, he worked for the country's state-run arms export agency.
The billionaire partnered with two pairs of brothers -- Mikhail and Lev Cherney and David and Simon Reuben -- and created a metal trading company named Trans World Group in the early 1990s and, in 1996, became general director of Gaisky GOK, the Ural region's largest copper miner.
During the next three years, he and Andrey Kozitsyn, general director of nearby copper processor UralElectromed, consolidated the region's copper mine operations. The partners officially founded the new group as a corporate entity in October 1999, calling it Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company. Within one year, UMMC became Russia's biggest copper producer. He also partnered with fellow billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, and was deputy general director of Deripaska's United Co. Siberian Aluminium, or Sibal, from 1998 to 2002.
Makhmudov made his steps toward creating a metals empire beyond copper in 2001, buying a majority stake in Russian steam coal producer Kuzbassrazrezugol with partner Andrey Bokarev. That year, he also tried expanding into steel with a failed hostile takeover of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, then the largest producer of the metal in Russia. A year later, he and Bokarev founded railroad car-manufacturer Transmashholding.
He continued to diversify and, in 2003, bought Electrozinc, one of Russia's two zinc plants. In the five years that followed, UMMC moved into construction and agriculture, and now operates 30 businesses across 14 regions in Russia.
In 2004, Makhmudov was named in a lawsuit filed in the District Court of Delaware by an ex-associate, Dzhalol Khaidarov, a former director at Kachkanarsk Mining and Processing Enterprise. In the suit, Khaidarov accused Makhmudov and two others of money laundering and acting as an organized crime group. The case was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction.
Makhmudov was again named in a money laundering case following a 2011 investigation in Spain. Spanish authorities handed the case over to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office November 2011. Then Prosecutor General's Office head of international department Saak Karapetyan told Interfax news service on May 5, 2012, that the case was transferred to the Interior Ministry's Investigative Committee and declined to comment further.