Oleg Boyko – biography of the Finstar Financial Group founder

Businessman Oleg Boyko: A Brief Biography and Career Achievements

“I believe that people are the only oil. What people contain is not contained in any oil. Everything is done by people, all the achievements. And I have always thought about that, and I’m interested in studying emotional intelligence.” – Oleg Boyko

Oleg Boyko is an international investor, banker and philanthropist. His net worth is estimated (2021) at just a little short of £1bn (£939,685,500m).

Brief biography of Oleg Boyko

Oleg Viktorovich Boyko was born on September 28, 1964 in Moscow in the family of respected Russian scientists. His father was the head of Vzlet NPO, where aircraft radio electronics were developed, while his mother was a researcher at the Institute of Medicinal Plants of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Early in the young Oleg’s life his parents spotted his aptitude for the exact sciences and sent him to a physics and mathematics school, from which he successfully graduated.

Boyko received his higher education at Moscow Aviation Institute, majoring in aircraft radio electronics, before going on to do a master’s degree in Business Administration at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Even as a student, the future hugely successful businessman launched his first projects – he set up a karate training outfit and sold computer hardware and software imported from the States.

Entrepreneurial activity

Boyko founded the international company Finstar in 1996, aged just 31, and it became the entrepreneur’s largest project. Over the years the group invested in the following companies:

1. Evrazholding was a joint project of Boyko’s and Alexander Abramov, a metal trader. The task of the company was to exchange the debts of metal producers for their shares. Subsequently, Boyko sold his owns shares in the company, according to media reports, in a deal exceeding £433,419,000.

2. Ritzio Entertainment Group is a gambling holding company. It was founded in 2002, which quickly became the well-known network of clubs under the Vulcan brand and became the largest of its kind in Eastern Europe.

3. Rive Gauche is a famous chain of cosmetic stores. The businessman acquired a majority stake in the company in 2006 and within a few years had raised its profile to the second largest retailer in the perfume and cosmetics market. In 2012, Oleg Boyko sold part of his shares, his stake today still amounting to a quarter of the company’s shareholding.

Finstar’s core businesses

To quote Boyko: “Finstar is the most geographically stable company in the world of lending and differs from others strategically, for example, alliances. We’ve been buying a lot of companies over the last 30 years, developing and selling them. This is our core business, part of a complex modification that no other similar financial group has.”

In 2011, Finstar Financial Group focused on promising projects in the digital financial services sector. It later announced plans to invest about £108,357,750 in portfolio companies, payment systems and credit risk management in Europe, Asia, the CIS and Russia.

Charity activity

The main area of the company’s philanthropic work is to support athletes with disabilities. As part of its corporate social responsibility activities, Finstar supports the Parasport Foundation. This non-profit charitable organisation, founded by Boyko, promotes healthy lifestyles and sporting achievements among physically challenged people, by funding a large number of athletes.

To quote Boyko: “Everything should be at the service of society. Business should work for society and should have a social face.”

In 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Boyko helped more than 2,000 para-athletes – representing 28 different sports in 35 regions of the Russian Federation – through the Parasport Foundation. At the same time, he participated in Forbes 400’s annual philanthropy summit.