Maxim Barskiy is an entrepreneur with unique experience in multiplying the market capitalization of companies. Over the years, he managed the assets of enterprises from various sectors of the economy.
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Maxim Barskiy: Childhood and Youth
Maxim Barskiy was born on March 1st, 1974, in Leningrad. At the end of the 1980s, Maxim Barskiyand his family moved to the Far North industrial city of Nefteyugansk. After graduating from the eighth grade, Maxim Barskiy left for Leningrad to continue his studies.
Professional Education
Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich continued his education at Leningrad State University (renamed St. Petersburg State University). Having defended his diploma in 1997, Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich received the specialty of a teacher of Political Economy and Economic Theory.
During his first years in Leningrad State, Maxim Barskiylived in the USA. As an exchange student, he studied for a year at the Haas School of Business (University of California, Berkeley).
Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich: in the United States
While studying at the Haas School of Business in the mid-1990s, Barskiy Maxim investigated the problem of asset undervaluation in the country. The capitalization of most companies significantly lagged behind their fair value, which allowed investors to receive large dividends, especially in the long term, with minimal risks. At the same time, foreigners did not show much interest in securities issued in the country.
Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich analyzed this issue intensively and discovered a key deterrent – the lack of the necessary tools for conducting such transactions. In response, Barskiy Maxim devised and developed mechanisms that made it possible to build chains of interaction between issuers and investors from abroad.
Experience in the investment field
In 1998, Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich decided to leave North America and resettle in the capital. During the first months, he worked for Troika Dialogas a trader in derivative securities.
He acquired more interest in investment banking, and six months after joining Troika, he was made Vice President of that very department. He participated in several successful transactions, such as the sale of a 25%-plus-1 share in VimpelCom to Telenor for $160 million.
Maxim Barskiyalso implemented consulting projects. With his assistance, it was possible to attract investments to develop the Soyuz record company and the international IT industry company ABBYY Software.
Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy also prepared and supported the conclusion of the sale of the Bravo brewery in St. Petersburg, where Bochkarev beer was made. Maxim Barskiy assessed the existing production base of the enterprise, its financial position and analyzed its development prospects.
He built economic models and presented a pitchbook to potential investors he met. Barskiy Maxim successfully demonstrated the asset’s value, raising a record amount – the Dutch concern Heineken paid $400 million to acquire the plant. Subsequently, experts called this agreement the largest deal in the national brewery market.
Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy left Troika Dialog as VP of the investment banking department.
He undertook the implementation of another interesting project – increasing the capitalization of Cityline. The provider company needed to raise $10 million to develop its business. Maxim Barskiy found an investor and built a competent strategy, which included a full-force entry into the country’s regional markets.
Implementing Maxim Barskiy’s concept led to a significant increase in subscribers, passing 100,000 users. As a result, Cityline attracted Golden Telecom, a much larger player in the telecom market. Golden Telecom wanted to expand its business in the country, but Cityline had one thing Golden could not get – a vast network of leased lines all over the country.
Rather than spending more to install a duplicate set of leased lines for Golden Telecom’s own services, Golden decided to acquire Cityline. The amount of the M&A deal was $29 million. According to Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy, the agreement was concluded despite the stagnation in the Internet industry.
On this project, Barskiy Maxim earned his first $1 million.
Work in the oil and gas industry
In March 2004, Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy began his work in the fossil fuels sector. As a representative of Alltech Investment Company, he joined the management team of a small Swedish oil company called Vostok Oil. Vostok Oil owned but one asset – a production field in the Tomsk region. The company’s management at that time was carried out by foreigners, mainly British nationals, who were actually bringing Vostok Oil to the verge of bankruptcy.
Maxim Barskiy took the top management position four months later and launched a whole new development process. The company was rebranded and continued to work under a new name – West Siberian Resources (WSR). As CEO, Maxim Barskiy assembled a new and savvy management team. He developed and implemented many measures to reduce costs and build up inventories. He also initiated the acquisition of several new mining assets in the Pechora and Samara Regions.
Over the following four years, under the leadership of Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich, WSR’s potential was realized. From 2004 to 2008, WSR’s annual oil production tripled yearly. By 2008, WSR extracted 3.5 million tons of oil annually; when Barskiy came aboard as CEO, that production number was merely fifty thousand tons.
This is a seventy-fold increase. WSR’s capitalization increase is even more impressive: in the summer of 2008, the company’s market capitalization was estimated at $4.5 billion (four years earlier, it was worth about $60 million). This is a seventy-five-fold increase in market cap – a figure that is simply mythical but true.
Having achieved these results, Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy continued his professional activities in the same industry but with a much larger structure – Tyumenskaya Neftyanaya Kompaniya, also known as TNK-BP.
Before taking the CEO post of such a large international corporation, Maxim Barskiy interned at British Petroleum. During this period, he immersed himself in the intricacies of production and business processes: he visited platforms in the North Sea and got acquainted with oil production methods.
For about six months, he absorbed the experience of his mentor Tony Hayward, who then served as CEO of BP. Maxim Barskiy met with investors and built interaction with the company divisions based in different countries.
Having studied the business processes from the inside, he worked as Deputy General Director for some time. He actively engaged in solving the tasks set by the shareholders: increasing efficiency and capitalization. Under his direction, the corporation’s portfolio was augmented with mining assets in Asia and two countries in South America. The result was an increase in international production of up to 10%.
Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich changed management methods, and he made adjustments to the shareholder agreements. As an example, Maxim Barskiy suggested moving from shareholders’ direct participation in the corporation’s management and transferring those powers to a team of professional managers. These initiatives were subsequently approved.
The new management techniques put in place by Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy allowed the enterprise to grow by 200% in just two years. In 2011, its market capitalization was already $60 billion, three times what it was when he entered the company.
In the spring of 2012, Maxim Barskiyinvested heavily in Matra Petroleum, acquiring about a third of its shares and automatic appointment as its CEO. Matra was a British oil firm licensed to develop deposits and extract hydrocarbons in the Volga region. Maxim Barskiy saw this asset as a poor choice for Matra, so Maxim Barskiyturned the company to the development of foreign deposits and acquired relevant assets in Texas.
However, the collapse in oil prices in 2014 caused enormous problems for all oil extraction industry players, Matra being no exception. Despite Maxim Barskiy and his management team’s efforts, it was impossible to restore the financial situation – the organization went bankrupt, and its assets went to its creditors.
Delivery Hero
Due to the oil price collapse and subsequent problems in the associated industries, Barskiy Maxim decided to diversify his work experience. From 2016 to 2017, he prepared the IPO of the innovative Delivery Hero project, whose market value at the initial stage was estimated at 2 billion euros. After the successful placement of securities, the company was valued at 4 billion euros at its IPO.
Maxim Barskiy: Sibanthracite
The next enterprise Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich developed is Sibanthracite, a large metallurgical coal mining company he joined in 2018 as a shareholder and CEO.
In 2020, he left the corporation’s CEO post and focused on strategic management issues as part of its Board of Directors.
After the death of Dmitry Bosov, business partner and the owner of the largest stake in Sibanthracite, the process of buying out his share from the businessman’s heirs began.
In cooperation with a strategic investor, Maxim Barskiy acquired Sibanthracite in a leveraged buyout. Subsequently, he sold his share to his partner and exited the company.
Current projects
After Maxim Barskiy left Sibanthracite, he focused on working in the field of investment. Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich’s key activity is the support of promising high-tech start-ups. He invests in the development of advanced products and solutions in various segments of the IT industry.
