Oleg Tinkov facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Oleg Tinkov
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| Олег Тиньков | |
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Tinkov in 2015
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| Born |
Oleg Yuryevich Tinkov
25 December 1967 Polysayevo, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
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| Citizenship | Cyprus Russia (until 2022) United States (1996–2013) |
| Occupation | Founder of T-Bank |
| Years active | 1988–present |
| Spouse(s) |
Rina Vosman
(m. 2009) |
| Children | 3 |
Oleg Yuryevich Tinkov (Russian: Олег Юрьевич Тиньков; born 25 December 1967) is a businessman who was born in Russia. He is known for starting several successful companies.
Oleg Tinkov created a chain of home appliance stores called Technoshock. He also founded Daria, which made frozen foods, and Tinkoff breweries and restaurants. He even started a music store, Music Shock, and a record label, Shock Records. This label helped launch the first albums for bands like Kirpichi and Leningrad.
His most famous project is Tinkoff Bank. He founded this online bank in 2007. It became one of the biggest banks in Russia.
In 2019, Oleg Tinkov was diagnosed with leukemia, a type of cancer. He also faced issues with his taxes in the US. He later agreed to pay a large amount of money for unpaid taxes and fines. After his health issues, he stepped back from managing his businesses. In 2020, he started his own charity to help people with leukemia. In 2022, he gave up his Russian citizenship.
Contents
Oleg Tinkov's Life Story
Early Years and Hobbies
Oleg Tinkov was born in a small village called Polysayevo. His father was a miner and his mother was a seamstress.
From the age of 12, Oleg loved road cycling. He joined cycling clubs and won many races. In 1984, he even earned the title of a candidate in master of sports. During his cycling training, he started buying and selling rare goods. This was his first experience in business. His cycling career paused when he joined the military from 1986 to 1988.
University Life and First Businesses
In 1988, Oleg Tinkov went to the Mining Institute university. He saw many chances to trade goods there. He bought and sold things like jeans, cosmetics, and even Japanese electronics. He would buy items in one place and sell them for more money in another.
He traded with friends who also became successful businessmen. These friends later founded big retail chains like Lenta and DIXY. In 1999, he also studied at the University of California, Berkeley in the US.
Family Life
Oleg Tinkov met Rina Vosman, who is from Estonia, while they were at university. They got married in June 2009, after being together for 20 years. They have three children: a daughter named Daria and two sons, Pasha and Roman.
Business Ventures
Technoshock: Selling Electronics
In 1992, Oleg Tinkov started selling electronics in large amounts from Singapore. He set up companies in different cities to make it easier to sell goods. He started with small items like calculators and then moved to bigger things like TVs and VCRs. He learned to ship goods in large containers, which helped his business grow.
Soon, he decided to open his own stores instead of just selling wholesale. In 1994, he opened his first electronics store in St. Petersburg. In 1995, he combined his stores under the name Technoshock. These stores sold expensive home appliances and were very popular. Technoshock was one of the first companies in Russia to train its sales staff well. By 1996, Technoshock had many stores and was making a lot of money.
However, more competition came to St. Petersburg. In 1997, Oleg Tinkov sold Technoshock to its managers. He earned $7 million from this sale and used the money to start a new business.
Along with Technoshock, he also opened music stores called Music Shock in 1996. Famous singers performed at their openings. In 1998, he sold Music Shock. He also started a record label called Shock Records. This label helped launch the first albums of popular bands like Kirpichi and Leningrad.
Daria: Frozen Food Business
After selling Technoshock, Oleg Tinkov started making frozen foods. His brand was called Daria, named after his daughter. Production began in 1998. At first, he made products under another company's license. But after a disagreement, he created his own brand, Daria. This helped his company grow its share of the market.
In 2001, Oleg Tinkov sold Daria to a large holding company for $21 million.
Tinkoff Beer and Restaurants
In 1997, Oleg Tinkov decided to build a brewery. He got the idea to combine a brewery with a restaurant and name the beer after his family name, Tinkoff.
In August 1998, the first Tinkoff restaurant opened in St. Petersburg. People loved the beer, and soon there were long lines to buy it in bottles. More restaurants opened in Moscow and other big Russian cities.
By 2003, he built his first beer factory. He got loans from banks to build a second, even bigger factory. Tinkoff factories made different kinds of beer. They also spent a lot of money on advertising.
In 2005, a big company called Sun Interbrew bought the Tinkoff factories and brand for about $200 million. Oleg Tinkov then sold the restaurant buildings and later the restaurants themselves.
Tinkoff Bank: An Online Revolution
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In 2005, Oleg Tinkov shared his idea for a new kind of bank. In 2006, he bought a small bank in Moscow and used it to create Russia's first online bank. This bank, first called Tinkoff Credit Systems, grew very quickly, especially during the financial crisis of 2008.
Tinkoff Bank saved money by using smart marketing and a lot of computer processing instead of many human workers. For a long time, it mainly used its own money to lend to customers.
The bank's use of technology was key to its success. In 2013, the bank's shares were offered to the public for the first time (this is called an IPO). This made Oleg Tinkov much wealthier. Soon after, he gave up his US citizenship.
In 2015, Tinkoff Credit Systems changed its name to Tinkoff Bank. This shorter name better showed all the services the bank offered. By 2020, Oleg Tinkov still owned a large part of the bank.
In 2020, he sold some of his shares for $325 million. He said he would use $200 million of this money to start a fund for leukemia research. In 2022, international sanctions against Russia affected the bank's value, and Oleg Tinkov's wealth decreased.
Cycling Passion
Oleg Tinkov loves road cycling and was a talented cyclist himself. He even earned the title of candidate in master of sports in the USSR.
Tinkoff Restaurants Cycling Team
In 2005, he created a professional cycling team called Tinkoff Restaurants. It was the first Russian professional cycling team of its kind. The team started in 2006 and included top Russian cyclists. They won several races that year. The team later broke up due to disagreements.
Tinkoff Credit Systems Cycling Team
In 2007, the Tinkoff Credit Systems team was formed from the old Tinkoff Restaurants team. This new team had Italian management and more international riders. They did well in major European races, including the 2008 Giro d'Italia. Their success led to the creation of another Russian team, Katyusha.
Tinkoff Cycling Team
In December 2013, Oleg Tinkov bought a professional cycling team. This team was sponsored by Tinkoff Credit Systems since 2012. The Tinkoff team and Katyusha were the only Russian teams competing in the top UCI World Tour races.
Oleg Tinkov often trained with his team and traveled to races. He even dyed his hair pink to celebrate a victory in the 2015 Giro d'Italia. He often spoke about how professional cycling needed to change and become more exciting. He even offered top riders a lot of money to compete in all three major world races in one season.
In 2015, the team's co-sponsor left, and the team raced only as Tinkoff. At the end of 2015, Oleg Tinkov announced he would leave cycling and sell the team after the 2016 season. He said he was spending about 20 million euros a year on the team. He also mentioned that the sport wasn't changing enough and that teams often lost money. The team finished second in its last season and was officially disbanded in November 2016.
Other Ventures and Interests
Oleg Tinkov owns a private jet with his bank's logo on it. He also invested in luxury chalets (fancy mountain houses) in the French Alps called La Datcha. In 2020, he launched the world's first private icebreaker yacht, also named La Datcha. This large, strong yacht can travel through ice and is available for rent.
In 2017, he gave up his American citizenship.
Writings and Media
From 2007 to 2010, Oleg Tinkov wrote columns for Finance magazine. He also had a TV show called Business secrets with Oleg Tinkoff. He is active on Facebook and Twitter.
Oleg Tinkov has written two books about his business experiences. The first, "I am like everyone," was published in 2010. The second, "How to become a businessman," came out a year later.
Tinkoff Lane Story
To help promote his Tinkoff brand, Oleg Tinkov created a fun story. He pretended that an ancestor named Porphyry Tinkoff was a brewer who supplied beer to the royal court in 1759. He even presented a fake page from an old dictionary to city officials. The officials believed the story and agreed to name a street after the Tinkoff family. So, on July 7, 2003, Tinkoff Lane appeared in Pushkin, Saint Petersburg.
Health Journey
On March 6, 2020, Oleg Tinkov announced that he was battling acute leukemia, a type of blood cancer. He had been diagnosed in October 2019 and had already started chemotherapy. His health news caused the shares of his company, TCS Group, to drop.
On December 18, 2020, Oleg Tinkov shared good news. After a bone marrow transplant, his last tests showed that his cancer was in complete remission. He even met the person who donated bone marrow and saved his life.
Cancer Charity Fund
In December 2020, Oleg Tinkov announced that his family would start a charity fund to help people with leukemia. The Tinkov Family Foundation (TFF) was officially registered in 2021. Its goals included encouraging people to donate bone marrow, creating a national register for stem cells, and building transplant centers in Russia. Oleg Tinkov invested over $200 million of his own money into the fund.
The fund also partnered with the Leukemia Foundation to support research, operations, and medicine. In October 2021, it announced a plan to help over 900 leukemia patients. However, after being labeled a "foreign agent" in Russia, Oleg Tinkov announced he was closing his charity fund and leaving the board of trustees of the Leukemia Foundation to avoid causing problems for their work.
See also
In Spanish: Oleg Tinkov para niños
