Noah Kirsch Mar 31, 2017

Oleg Deripaska, an international aluminum tycoon, is one of five dozen Russian billionaires whose net worth has risen since Donald Trump’s election. The 49-year-old Muscovite has benefited tremendously from a global rebound in aluminum prices and a surge in the ruble’s value; his fortune has jumped $1.6 billion since November 8.

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Deripaska, now worth an estimated $5.3 billion, made headlines last week after the Associated Press reported that he paid former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort millions of dollars as a consultant beginning in 2006 with the intention of influencing global politics on behalf of the Russian state. Both Manafort and Deripaska have denied that allegation.

A former metals trader, Deripaska holds the bulk of his fortune in shares of United Company Rusal, which bills itself as the world’s largest aluminum producer. Rusal’s stock has climbed 41% higher since the general election, including a more-than 4% gain on Thursday.

Sergey Donskoy, a senior metals and mining analyst at Societe Generale, attributes much of the increase to a strong international aluminum market caused, in part, by predicted Chinese domestic production caps. He expects global aluminum prices to further rally this year.

Rusal’s stock has undoubtedly also benefited, at least in the short term, from President Trump’s ascendance. Its stock rose 16% the day after his victory alone.

Deripaska is not the only high-net-worth Russian with solid post-election returns. To date, Russian billionaires have added $27 billion to their fortunes since November 8; in the last year, the group’s combined net worth has risen $104 billion.

Deripaska’s career has been marked by extreme volatility. After taking control of Russian Aluminum in 2000, he rose to become the world’s 9th richest person by 2008, with a $28 billion fortune. But he nearly lost everything when the global financial crisis hit and his companies struggled with heavy debt loads.

Following the collapse, Deripaska, who married into the family of former president Boris Yeltsin, negotiated with the Russian government to restructure his loan obligations. His personal worth has since partially recovered, and he now holds a diverse portfolio with investments in automotive, metals and financial services businesses.

In last week’s Associated Press report, Deripaska, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, was accused of hiring Paul Manafort to a $10 million annual contract starting in 2006. Manafort allegedly created a “plan to ‘greatly benefit the Putin government’” by influencing “politics, business dealings” and media in the US and Europe.

In an ad placed in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, Deripaska called those claims “false allegations” and said that he had been made the “subject of a massive and misleading campaign.”

In a statement provided to FORBES, a representative for Manafort confirmed that the former Trump adviser worked for Deripaska as a consultant for Rusal, but firmly denied that Manafort was ever employed by, or on behalf of, the Russian government. The spokesperson classified many of this week’s reports as “smear and innuendo being used to paint a false picture.”

He did not respond to questions about whether Manafort has ever been employed by Russian billionaires other than Deripaska.