Forbes Russia gets a new owner and its journalists claim victory
What happened
The conflict between the owner of Russian Forbes and his journalists, which we wrote about in July, was resolved this week. Russia’s most important business magazine got a new owner: Magomed Musaev, a businessman from the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, a former government official, venture capitalist, founder of the U.S. fund GVA Capital and owner of Hack Temple. He has phone numbers for all the major Russian oligarchs in his contact book, one of his partners told The Bell. Musaev has promised to preserve Forbes’ editorial independence, and, for now, Forbes journalists are confident they have won a rare victory.
- Since 2015, when Russian Forbes was bought by unremarkable businessman, Alexander Fedotov, scandal has swirled around the magazine. Fedotov attempted to censor the editorial team at the same time as he was experiencing escalating financial troubles. After the seizure of some of his real estate and an uprising by the journalists at Forbes, he was forced to look for a new owner.
- Musaev has a contradictory biography. “He has had the phone numbers of all the oligarchs in his address book since Soviet times. He used his address book and his talents to develop Russian businesses,” Pavel Cherkashin, Musaev’s partner in GVA Capital, told us. Musaev himself has never spoken directly about his own business. When Moscow was run by legendary mayor Yury Luzhkov in the 1990s and 2000s, Musaev ran the giant Soviet expo center VDNKh. In 2009, Musaev worked for the Moscow mayor’s office and then in the local government of Dagestan where he was responsible for innovation — the last thing that comes to mind when you think about business in the Caucasus. But Musaev didn’t stay in government for long.
- In 2011, Musaev, together with venture investor Pavel Cherkashin and businessman Abdul Abdulkerimov, founded the fund GVA Capital in Silicon Valley. GVA Capital initially had $10 million under management; it now has $120 million. According to Musaev, the fund invested in almost 50 tech companies which are now collectively worth more than $5 billion. An acquaintance of Musaev’s told The Bell that some of those who Musaev helped with deals in the U.S. were other Dagestani natives and billionaires: Suleiman Kerimov and Ziyavudin Magomedov (the latter was arrested in April 2018). To demonstrate that the fund in Silicon Valley was serious, two years ago the partners bought the former church of Maria Guadaloupe in San Francisco for $7 million, which they converted into a co-living space and renamed Hack Temple.
- Under the deal, U.S. Forbes extended the license to the Russian version of the magazine until 2023 (the license payment is about $1 million a year). Musaev was able to reach an agreement, in his own words, thanks to his close relations with the Forbes family and the magazine’s Hong Kong shareholders. After the deal, Musaev announced he would guarantee editorial independence and the former editor-in-chief, who was fired by the previous owner, returned to the company. He also invited former editors, including The Bell founder Liza Osetinskaya, to join Russian Forbes’ board of directors. Forbes journalists are confident that this is a happy ending, but it’s difficult to predict how things will develop from here. Businessmen media owners in Russia are unpredictable, and a lot depends on their relationship with the government.
Why the world should care
Historically, Forbes in Russia was not just another business magazine, but one of the country’s main sources of investigative journalism. The Bell founder Osetinskaya, who served as editor-in-chief of Russian Forbes from 2011 until 2013, wrote about this in detail here. Forbes’ rating of Russian billionaires is so authoritative that the U.S. Treasury Department even used it as the basis for compiling its “Kremlin List”. Osetinskaya has not yet decided if she will accept the position on Forbes’ board of directors. What do you think: should she accept the offer?
Peter Mironenko
This newsletter is made with the support of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley.
