According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,Oleg Tinkov may have joined the ranks of Russia's billionaires when his online bank went public in October, but don't call him an oligarch.
Mr. Tinkov, 45 years old, is indeed a rarity on the Russian business scene. While most tycoons took advantage of close ties with the government to win control over huge oil, metals and other companies originally built by the Soviet government ("losers," says Mr. Tinkov), he founded a string of successful startups whose businesses range from selling electronics to making frozen Siberian ravioli. And in a country where prominent businesspeople keep their political views to themselves, Mr. Tinkov is a frenetic tweeter—outspoken and often critical of the Kremlin.
Mr. Tinkov, 45 years old, is indeed a rarity on the Russian business scene. While most tycoons took advantage of close ties with the government to win control over huge oil, metals and other companies originally built by the Soviet government ("losers," says Mr. Tinkov), he founded a string of successful startups whose businesses range from selling electronics to making frozen Siberian ravioli. And in a country where prominent businesspeople keep their political views to themselves, Mr. Tinkov is a frenetic tweeter—outspoken and often critical of the Kremlin.
While he used to be able to stay under the radar, his latest venture, an online bank called Tinkoff Credit Systems (he uses the "Tinkoff" spelling for businesses), now finds itself a leader in an industry that has landed squarely in the cross hairs of regulators and legislators.
Mr. Tinkov and his colleagues learned that the hard way last month. A local newspaper reported that a draft of changes to the consumer-finance law in parliament would have essentially banned TCS's branchless distribution model. Stunned investors drove TCS's newly listed shares down over 40%. Within hours, legislators explained that the confusion was the result of a word that had been inadvertently left out of the draft. The stock bounced bank, but the shock remained.
"I didn't think we were that big, but it turned out we are," says Mr. Tinkov. He added that the bank, the third-largest issuer of credit cards in Russia, is now looking for its first full-time government-relations executive.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, he dropped out of school and went into retail, later founding a chain of electronics stores. A friend who married an American invited him to visit California, where he discovered what he calls "the entrepreneur's Mecca" of Silicon Valley.
But there was less competition back home, so he returned and started a line of frozen Siberian ravioli, naming it for his daughter, Daria. He sold the company, which had grown to become one of Russia's largest, for $21 million in 2001 to tycoon Roman Abramovich. From there, he went into premium beer, building the Tinkoff line until he sold it to InBev SA for €167 million ($229.7 million) in 2005.
Mr. Tinkov says the idea for the bank came during a visit to the U.S., when he grew fascinated with the model of Capital One. He took the direct-mail idea back to Russia and set up TCS in 2007. His drive and track record of success helped him win the backing of Goldman Sachs, his first investor. After struggling with the rest of the Russian economy through the global financial crisis, TCS then took off, doubling its assets annually for the next three years.
TCS is branching out into insurance and mobile payments, seeking to build on its customer base. The bank has also started taking deposits—including the roughly $200 million he got from the IPO, Mr. Tinkov says. (He still owns 51% of the bank's stock.)
But the stock is still trading about 16% below the IPO price. "It is going to take a while for investor confidence to recover" after the drop last month, says TCS President Oliver Hughes.
