Maxim Barskiy is a specialist in the field of increasing the market value of enterprises. Businessman and Active Investor for more than twenty years, former CEO, and shareholder in multibillion dollar mining and metallurgical enterprises like TNK BP and Sibanthracite, with a current focus on investors in high-tech startups.
Maxim Barskiy: Education
Barskiy Maxim graduated from an ordinary school in Nefteyugansk. Almost immediately he moved to Leningrad, where he entered a technical school. Maxim Barskiy continued his studies at Leningrad State University, one of the largest and finest classical universities (now renamed St. Petersburg State University). He decided to enter the school’s student exchange program and won the selection.
Maxim Barskiy studied in a Norwegian college in his first month of being an exchange student. He was then accepted and enrolled in U Cal Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. This educational institution is considered among the very finest of American and international management schools.
In the Investment Profession
Even in his student years, Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy showed great interest in studying the capital market and investments. In his thesis, which he successfully defended at the Leningrad State University, he addressed the topic of the correlation of securities in the stock market.
After returning from the United States, Barskiy got into the team of Troika Dialog, a Moscow firm that was considered a leader in the investment banking industry. He started there as a trader, and soon he was made vice president of a specialized division. Troika Dialog was a symbiosis of domestic and foreign experience.
Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich participated in M&A and other types of transactions while at Troika. Some notable transactions include the transfer of VimpelCom shares to the Telenor telecom group from Norway (this transaction was carried out during the telecom crisis period, and the sale of a St. Petersburg brewery to the world-famous Dutch concern Heineken.
Representatives of the Internet provider Cityline contacted Troika Dialog – the company needed investments to expand its business in the regional markets. Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich was interested in this project and he volunteered to support it. Having been promoted to a high-level manager, Barskiy began to develop an effective development model. Under his guidance, Cityline’s value increased to $ 29 million, and the number of subscribers increased zoomed past 100,000.
Having prepared Cityline for sale, Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich found Golden Telecom, a larger telecom concern that was unable to expand without Cityline’s well-placed leased line infrastructure. Golden Telecom bought out Cityline entirely, and Mr. Barskiy made his first million dollars in this sale.
Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich and the Energy and Mining Sector
In 2004, Barskiy Maxim turned his attention to the oil and gas sector. He took a position in the management of Vostok Oil. After the decision of the owners to rename the company WSR (West Siberian Resources), Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich was appointed to the position of CEO.
One of the first steps that he took in office was a personnel reshuffle – WSR employed a number of ineffective foreign specialists who did not understand how to conduct business locally. These personnel were replaced with knowledgeable team members. New promising deposits were acquired, located in different regions.
Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy found a strategic foreign investor who acquired a ten percent stake in his company. This investor was Repsol, a Spanish firm and one of the leading players in the international oil and gas market, most notably in Latin America.
WSR’s volume of production and capitalization grew explosively – in four years production volume increased by a factor of seventy, and the market value of WSR soared, going from $60 million to $4.5 billion.
Early in 2008, NK Alliance and WSR executed a merger, becoming Alliance Oil Company. In the third quarter of that year, Maxim Barskiy stepped down from his post, having led the company to massive success. He sold his stake and left the company.
Following Barskiy’s work with Vostok / WSR / Alliance Oil, he joined TNK-BP, one of the largest oil-producing companies in the world. Shareholders of a large company in the oil industry invited Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy to a senior position in the holding. This was an opportunity for Mr. Barskiy to learn much about Western ecologically-minded business practices and import their use to the local market. He worked as a Deputy General Director, acquiring mining companies in Asia and South America. As a result, oil production from international divisions amounted to one-tenth of the total output of TNK-BP.
From 2011 to 2018 Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy headed Matra Petroleum. As CEO, he initiated the sale of local assets and acquisition of oil-producing fields in the southern United States.
Maxim Barskiy and Sibanthracite: Building a Coal-mining Giant
In 2018, Dmitry Bosov recruited Maxim Barskiy to lead Sibanthracite. These two businessmen had periodically launched various projects together ever since the mid-90s. Mr. Bosov entrusted Maxim Barskiy with Sibanthracite reforms, tasking him with merging disparate assets, increasing Sibanthracite’s market value.
Under Barskiy’s leadership, Sibanthracite moved into a completely new stage of development, leading to a statement by Maxim Barskiy: “Sibanthracite has taken a leading position in the world anthracite market.”
The sudden death of Dmitry Bosov accelerated the process of selling the company. Barskiy had to effectively prepare the deal. He led the management team to execute a leveraged buyout of Sibanthracite and sell the company to a strategic investor without disrupting the operations and contract fulfillment.
AI Development
Maxim Barskiy left Sibanthracite and returned to investment activiteis. Today, the businessman invests in developing bleeding-edge technologies such as wearable artificial intelligence technology.
Interesting information
Maxim Barskiy’s favorite books are novels by Bulgakov, Marquez, Dostoyevsky, and business literature, including Miller’s Chip War: The World Battle for Critical Technologies. In his youth Mr. Barskiy was actively involved in sports. Today he practices yoga, meditation and qigong.
