A UKRAINIAN-born business tycoon who now holds UK-US citizenship is worth a staggering £28billion.
Sir Leonard Blavatnik owns the London-based sports streaming platform DAZN – pronounced “da zone”.
His wealth has doubled in just the last three years, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.
It’s not all been plain sailing though as Sir Leonard suffered a setback after the platform reportedly suffered losses of more than $2billion (£1.6bn).
The cost of securing sports right rose from $1.2bn in 2020 to $1.9bn in 2021.
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That rise is said to have driven total losses at the company, backed by the billionaire, to $2.3bn (£1.8bn) in 2021.
However, DAZN’s chief executive Shay Segev, said “massive investment” partly explained the poor figures.
He put the float’s delay on difficult capital markets and said it could still occur with the next two to three years.
Since 2016, DAZN has lost more than $6bn (£4.8bn) in its bid to create was has been called “the Netflix of sports”, according to calculations by The Sunday Times based on UK company filings.
While Sir Leonard, 65, built his fortune in Russia, where he offloaded the last of his assets in 2013, he has long held joint US and British citizenship.
He was born in Odessa when Ukraine was under the control of the Soviet Union and later moved to a city north of Moscow when he was a child.
While he was at university at the Russian capital he met his business partner and fellow Ukrainian Viktor Vekselberg, 66, who is now under western sanctions.
The pair built up and then offloaded large stakes in Russia’s largest aluminium company and a leading oil firm in the 1980s.
Blavatnik then settled in the and studied computer science at Columbia University and then gained an MBA from Harvard Business School.
He created his investment operation Access Industries in New York in 1986.
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It has holdings worth $35bn (£29.2bn) in 30 countries and includes a majority stake in Warner Music.
Sir Leonard has been pushed into the limelight due to his ownership of Warner and he has been photographed with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora and Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
Warner Music is now worth a cool £8.3bn even if the company’s share price has taken a bit of a fall this past year.
The Sunday Times puts Sir Leonard’s fortune at an eye-watering £28.625bn.
He is married to his American wife, Emily Appelson and they have four children.
As well as his business interests, he and his family have a home in London and properties in New York worth several hundred million dollars.
He also has hotels in Hollywood and Miami Beach, as well as the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat on the Côte d’Azur in France, plus the Ocean Club luxury resort in the Bahamas.
Sir Leonard also splashed out £45million to buy the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London’s West End.
He has also given generously to cultural causes including £50m to the Tate Modern and £10m to the Courtauld Institute of Art, the paper reports.
According to the Rich List, he is now in third place, rising one place from last year as his fortune grew by more than £8bn in just 12 months.
He has also worked as a producer on a number of Broadway shows, including Sunset Boulevard and The Front Page.
