Lisin is the chairman of Novolipetsk Steel, Russia's largest steelmaker. The Lipetsk, Russia-based company is publicly traded company and produced 15.7 million metric tons of crude steel and had $16.2 billion of revenue in 2021. He also owns port facilities operator UCL Port and shipping company VBTH.
The majority of Lisin's fortune is derived from his 79.3% stake in Novolipetsk Steel, a publicly traded miner. The Lipetsk, Russia-based company exports steel to Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the US. Lisin owns the shares through Abu Dhabi-based special purpose vehicle Serenity II Holdings as of June 30, 2023, according to a Bloomberg News report. Novolipetsk Steel is Russia's largest steelmaker by tonnage in 2022, according to the World Steel Association's website.
Lisin parlayed dividends collected from Novolipetsk Steel into a $5.5 billion investment in transportation and shipping businesses. He owns UCL Port, which has port facilities, and VBTH, which provides shipping, shipbuilding and tourist cruise services, according to Lisin's press office. The valuation methodology for these companies can be found in the assets notes for each. Country risk discounts have been added where appropriate to capture the effect of western sanctions against Russia.
The value of his cash investments, which is calculated US dollars and not rubles, reflects the cost of acquiring Freight One, as well as an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
One of the Russian richest steel tycoons began his career as an electrical fitter in a Siberian coal mine in the mid-1970s. After graduating from the Siberian Metallurgical Institute in 1979, he worked as an engineer in iron and steel plants around Russia. In 1986, he was named deputy chief engineer at the state-run Karaganda mill in North Kazakhstan, the fourth-largest steelmaker in the former Soviet Union, where he began trading metals.
Lisin moved to Moscow in 1992 and started working with businessman Sam Kislin, a Soviet emigrant living in the US, who was a pioneer in private, large-scale metal exports from Russia.
Lisin later joined a group of metals traders called Trans-World Group (TWG). Headed by two brothers, Mikhail and Lev Cherney, TWG soon came to dominate Russia's steel and aluminum export business. When the firm collapsed in 1997, Lisin moved to Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK). He became chairman of NLMK's board of directors in 1998. By 2004, through a series of transactions and using his profits from metals trading, he had acquired about 90 percent of the company from a group of investors and NLMK management.
The company sold shares on the London Stock Exchange in 2005. Lisin tapped the dividends of his NLMK shares to invest in ports, as well as transportation and shipping companies. He paid more than $5 billion to acquire Freight One, Russia's largest rail car operator in 2011-2012.
Lisin also owns one of the largest shooting-range complexes in Europe. Lisya Nora (Fox Lodge) is 28 miles north of Moscow.