Eduard Shufrin and his co-owners of Zaporizhstal steel mill pulled off a daring move by pulling out of a deal to sell the top-five Ukrainian steelmaker to Rinat Akhmetov, the country’s richest man.

Instead a controlling stake went to Russian investors, backed by state-owned Vneshekonombank, and Akhmetov got a $50 million pay-off as compensation for missing out on the deal.

At the end of 2008, Shifrin split his business with his partner, Soviet-born Canadian national Alexander Shnaider.

In Russia, Shifrin was left with a portfolio of 1.6 million square meters of commercial, residential and hotel property.

The largest projects were frozen, owing to a lack of resources.

The Canadian and Dominican side of the business went to Shnaider. In Ukraine they sold the MD Retail chain and the Kharkiv-based distribution company Ns Ltd.

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According to Forbes magazine, Shifrin resides in London, where he busies himself with maintaining relationships with Ukraine’s elite, philanthropy in the Jewish community and leisure sports like water-skiing and horseback riding.

The Ukrainian native hails from Dnipropetrovsk and earned a PhD in metallurgy from Moscow’s Institute of Steel and Alloys.

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