Profile of a business figure whose expertise bridges finance, chemistry, and international development.
Iakov Goldovskiy is an entrepreneur and owner of the Austrian Petrochemical Holding company. He was born on February 26, 1962, in Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian SSR). In 1997, he graduated from the Odessa National Technological University (ONTU) with a degree in accounting and auditing. In 2001, he graduated from the Russian State Social University (RSSU) with a degree in Economics and law. In 2004, he earned an Executive MBA from IMADEC University in Vienna. Since 1991, he has been living in Vienna, Austria.
Early life and first steps in business
After completing his military service in 1983, Iakov Goldovskiy rejoined his family, who had moved from Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine to Tashkent. In Tashkent, he launched his first private business activities and enrolled in the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers (TIIAME). Between 1987 and 1988, he worked in Uzbekistan, before moving to Moscow.
By the late 1980s, Goldovskiy had launched a small-scale production company in Lyubertsy, Moscow Region, and continued to work in this area until the early 1990s.
Venturing into entrepreneurship and expanding internationally
In 1990, during the development of the cooperative movement in Russia, Goldovskiy became actively involved in new projects. During this period, he met the Bulgarian entrepreneur Lora Vidinlieva. Together, they co-founded one of the USSR’s first foreign-invested enterprises in Moscow – the joint Soviet-Russian-Panamanian enterprise JV “Columbus”. The company received government permission to export and import over 100 categories of commodity items, including oil, gas, timber, rawhide, metals among other things. During the early 1990s, JV “Columbus” was one of the leading Russian exporters of business timber, lumber, other woodworking products, as well as a processor of leather raw materials from cattle, and an importer of food products.
Since 1991, Goldovsky and his family have been living in Vienna, Austria. Between 1992 and 1995, Goldovskiy established several commercial enterprises across the former USSR and former Comecon (The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) countries.
In 1992, Goldovskiy established the Austrian company Rosetto GmbH, which was actively involved in the oil market, among other sectors. That same year, he also founded the Belarusian-Austrian joint company TESTA in Grodno, Belarus, with Rosetto as majority shareholder. The enterprise became Europe’s largest manufacturer of wooden Euro pallets. TESTA was the first CIS-based producer to receive Deutsche Bahn certification and produced up to 1.2 million EU-standard pallets annually.
In 1994, Rosetto, in partnership with Rosneft, became an official agent of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the process of implementing the Russian-Kazakh intergovernmental agreement with $500 million state guarantees from the Kazakhstan government. In 1994-1997, the company processed up to 6 million tons of oil annually at oil refineries in Kazakhstan, supplying petroleum products to Kazakhstani agricultural producers and receiving grain in return through barter schemes, exporting it to Europe and Asia.
Establishing SIBUR as a vertically integrated petrochemical holding
In 1996, former Chairman of Gossnab (the State Supplies of the USSR) Stanislav Anisimov invited Goldovskiy to serve as Deputy General Director of Roskontrakt, a state corporation formed on the basis of the former Gossnab system. The corporation specialized in foreign trade operations.
Also in 1996, Goldovskiy founded ZAO (Closed Joint-Stock Company) Gazoneftekhimicheskaya Kompaniya (GNK), a subsidiary of Petrochemical Holding (PCH), in Russia. In partnership with Roscontract and Gazprom, he co-founded OAO (Open Joint-Stock Company) Gazsibcontract in Moscow. Gazprom held a 51% stake and 49% held by companies affiliated with Goldovskiy.
On March 7, 1995, by presidential decree of Boris Yeltsin, SIBUR (the Siberian-Ural Oil and Gas Chemical Company) was established. The company intended to become a major nationwide player in Russia’s gas and petrochemical sector, built as a vertically integrated holding. However, the project didn’t meet expectations, and in 1998 the government decided to privatize SIBUR. Following GNK’s acquisition of the holding’s shares from the state, it was Iakov Goldovskiy who effectively built SIBUR’s business from the ground up — consolidating core assets, establishing infrastructure, and putting in place a functioning management system.
By 2001, he consolidated control over much of the gas processing infrastructure in Western Siberia and the Urals, acquiring controlling stakes — in some cases up to 100% — in major petrochemical facilities and incorporating them into SIBUR’s centralized management system, forming a unified Production and Technological Complex (PTC SIBUR). In 1999, he became de facto owner of SIBUR and company president. Between 1996 and 2001, Goldovskiy’s companies invested over $900 million in SIBUR projects and enterprise acquisitions. Over the following years, he consolidated several dozen gas processing and petrochemical enterprises into a unified structure known as the SIBUR Production and Technological Complex (PTC). This was financed in part by leading European and Russian banks such as Raiffeisenbank, Gazprombank, Sberbank, and Alfa-Bank, etc.
By 2001, SIBUR had become Russia’s largest petrochemical company, vertically integrating processing of associated petroleum gas (APG) and gas condensate, tire manufacturing, plastic and PET production, the production of fertilizers, etc. Goldovskiy prepared the company for a potential IPO and worked to build a transparent, modern, and independent corporate structure. By that point, SIBUR’s board of directors had grown to 17 members, including just three from GNK and five from Gazprom. The board also featured Yury Osipov, then-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences; four regional governors; top executives from global petrochemical leaders such as BASF SE, Bayer AG, and The Dow Chemical Company; and major international investors, including Christopher Getty.
Under his leadership , SIBUR became the largest petrochemical company in Russia with a unique independent corporate structure at that time, bringing together leading Russian scientists, regional leaders and international top managers of global chemical companies.
Tensions with Gazprom and the financial fallout
In December 2000, Goldovskiy organized the issuance of SIBUR’s corporate bonds in the amount of 2 billion rubles, with participation of Raiffeisenbank. This move was seen as a key step toward a future IPO and was intended to strengthen confidence among creditors and partners by demonstrating the company’s ability to attract financing on the open market.
However, a conflict with Gazprom’s new management led to the bank demanding early repayment of the bonds, triggering financial instability. To stabilize the situation, Goldovskiy sold one of the gas processing plants to Surgutneftegaz for $50 million and used the proceeds to support SIBUR’s financial rehabilitation.
As tensions escalated, Goldovskiy came under criminal prosecution. However, a legal review led by academician Vladimir Laptev confirmed the legality of his actions. Despite transparent corporate governance and financial activities of the company, timely loan servicing and overall financial discipline, the conflict around Sibur had intensified.
The criminal case and subsequent events (2002–2003)
On January 7, 2002, at the request of Gazprom’s management, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case and arrested Goldovskiy, who spent seven months in pre-trial detention. Goldovskiy was charged under Article 201 of the Russian Criminal Code (“Abuse of Authority”) for actions that included diluting Gazprom’s controlling stake in SIBUR. Additional charges — including criminal conspiracy, fraud, embezzlement, the alleged unlawful transfer of its assets, and money laundering — were later added, but he was acquitted of all of them. He was ultimately convicted only under Article 201 and sentenced to seven months in prison, a term he had already served. Goldovskiy was eventually fully acquitted of all charges, which he described as politically and economically motivated.
As a result of the pressure, he was forced to transfer SIBUR shares and related assets to Gazprom’s control. However, during negotiations in 2002–2003, preliminary agreements were reached to retain blocking stakes (25% plus one share) for Goldovskiy in SIBUR and its associated Russian and foreign enterprises in Ukraine, Poland, and Hungary. The agreement also included $300 million in compensation, but in reality, Goldovskiy received only about $85 million plus interest, an amount significantly lower than the true market value of the holding he had created.
International expansion and starting over in Vienna (2003–2006)
From 2003 to 2005, companies affiliated with him expanded their international operations, acquiring a number of assets for the production of PET preforms (plastic bottle blank) across Lithuania, Ukraine, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Russia, and other countries. These were relatively small but high-margin enterprises, whose products were in demand among beverage manufacturers. To ensure a stable supply of raw materials for this business in 2004, Goldovskiy built a large industrial PET production facility in Klaipeda, Lithuania, with a capacity of 330 thousand tons per year. In 2007, these assets were sold.
In 2004, Goldovskiy acquired the Korund chemical plant in Dzerzhinsk (Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia), a major Russian producer of cyanide compounds, PVC pipes, corundum, and plexiglass. At the time, Korund was experiencing significant financial distress. Goldovskiy initiated a comprehensive restructuring and recovery program, installing a new management team and modernizing the plant’s infrastructure.
A central platform for international expansion became Petrochemical Holding, an Austrian-based company used to attract international financing. With an open credit line of approximately €1 billion from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank, Petrochemical financed industrial projects and operations across Russia and Europe, supporting infrastructure development and complex production chains.
One of the most successful ventures was the acquisition and scaling of a PET preform manufacturing group Retal Industries, previously partially owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). After buying out the EBRD’s share, Goldovskiy expanded the business into a transnational corporate structure with an annual turnover of approximately $2 billion, including assets across Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
Purchase of the RAFO Onești refinery and projects in Romania
In 2006, Goldovskiy’s team acquired the RAFO Onești oil refining and petrochemical complex in Romania. The facility was a strategic industrial asset, with a strong scientific and technological foundation inherited from Romania’s socialist and comecon era industrialization. At the time, the development of the region’s petrochemical sector had historically been supported by Elena Ceaușescu, who facilitated technology transfers from the USSR to Romania.
While the acquisition initially appeared transparent, complications soon arose. After investing in the company and paying off roughly €200 million in legacy tax debt owed by RAFO, the Romanian tax authorities attempted to impose a similar amount in new penalties and financial sanctions, moves viewed by the company as legally unfounded. Despite facing extensive bureaucratic obstacles, Goldovskiy’s legal team mounted a strong defense, winning over 200 court cases and demonstrating a high level of legal and financial transparency.
However, the situation became more complicated after a conflict with a minority shareholder who held just 1.5% of RAFO. After that shareholder was arrested and convicted (with property confiscated), Romanian authorities imposed a blanket asset seizure on the entire enterprise. Although courts later ruled the seizures unlawful, the asset freeze paralyzed RAFO’s operations, and Goldovskiy was forced to initiate bankruptcy proceedings.
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) eventually ruled in Goldovskiy’s favor, confirming that Romanian authorities had acted unlawfully and awarding compensation for lost profits.
United Petrochemical Company (UPC) Joint Venture
In September 2011, Iakov Goldovskiy, in partnership with AFK Sistema and ANC Bashneft, founded the joint venture Obyedinennaya Neftekhimicheskaya Kompaniya OJSC, or OJSC United Petrochemical Company. Goldovskiy’s share in UPC, through his Austrian company Petrochemical Holding, amounted to 25%. The goal of the venture was to build a powerful, vertically integrated petrochemical group by combining Bashneft’s petrochemical production base in Bashkiria with Goldovskiy’s group of companies based in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region.
A total of $5 billion was earmarked for large-scale investments, involving international partners and aimed at modernizing existing facilities and constructing new production plants in both Bashkiria and the Nizhny Novgorod region. Despite receiving the necessary approvals, the project was ultimately suspended due to legal disputes initiated by the Russian government in 2014 regarding the legitimacy of Bashneft’s privatization.
Current projects and new frontiers
In June 2019, Goldovskiy’s interests expanded once again with the acquisition of First Oil, an oil production company, from the investment firm GEM Capital. However, due to the geopolitical situation surrounding the military conflict in Ukraine and mutual sanction pressure between the EU and Russia, Goldovskiy was forced to divest all assets in Russia, including First Oil, in 2022.
Currently, Goldovsky’s strategic focus is on expansion in the MENA region and the production of cyanide, a key component in the gold mining industry. As part of this strategy, he is developing one of the largest chemical industrial projects in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) — the construction of a plant in Alexandria, Egypt. The site for production has been granted the status of a private free economic zone and the project is supported at the highest level of the Egyptian government, including the personal support of the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ahmed Samir.
In partnership with the Czech company Draslovka Holding, one of the world leaders in the production of specialty and cyanide chemistry, Petrochemical Holding is investing about $160 million in the first stage of construction of the joint project. The new sodium cyanide plant is expected to become the largest in the region and will meet both domestic demand and exports: up to 80% of the products are planned to be exported.
