Mikhail Prokhorov: Norilsk Nickel, the Brooklyn Nets and the 2012 Presidential Race

Sanctions status — checked 18 October 2026

Not found on the OFAC SDN, UK OFSI or EU consolidated lists.

Absence from these three lists does not mean no restrictions apply elsewhere: other countries and earlier listings are covered in the sanctions section below. Checked against the OFAC SDN list, the UK OFSI consolidated list and the EU consolidated list. Sanctions lists change without notice — verify against the primary source before relying on this.

Current figure: Forbes puts Mikhail Prokhorov’s net worth at $11 billion as of 18 October 2026 (Forbes profile). Estimates are revised continuously and Forbes and Bloomberg frequently disagree.

Mikhail Prokhorov is a Russian businessman who made his fortune in banking and as chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, owned the Brooklyn Nets from 2010 to 2019 and ran against Vladimir Putin in the 2012 presidential election. His investment holding is the Onexim Group. Only Ukraine has sanctioned him; he is not on the US, UK, EU, Canadian or Swiss lists.

Born: 3 May 1965 in Moscow (Delovoy Peterburg, annex to Ukraine’s Decree 727/2022)
Education: Moscow State Finance Institute, graduated 1989 as an economist
Known for: chief executive of Norilsk Nickel (2001–2007), owner of the Brooklyn Nets (2010–2019), presidential candidate in 2012, founder of the Onexim Group
Citizenship: Russian; Israeli since 2022, according to Forbes and Ukraine’s sanctions annex
Sanctions as of October 2026: Ukraine (since 19 October 2022); not listed by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand or Australia

Banking, Interros and Norilsk Nickel

Prokhorov was born on 3 May 1965 in Moscow and graduated from the international economic relations faculty of the Moscow State Finance Institute in 1989 (Delovoy Peterburg, 24 April 2008, Forbes). From 1989 to 1992 he headed a department at the International Bank for Economic Cooperation. From 1993 to April 1998 he chaired the management board of Onexim Bank, and from 2000 to 2001 he was president of Rosbank (Delovoy Peterburg). With his long-time partner Vladimir Potanin he founded the holding company Interros in 1990 (The Moscow Times, 1 February 2007).

In July 2001 Prokhorov became general director of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel producer (Delovoy Peterburg, Reuters via The Moscow Times, 19 December 2012). On 31 January 2007 Interros announced that he would step down as chief executive and that he and Potanin would divide their joint assets (RFE/RL, 31 January 2007, The Moscow Times, 1 February 2007). In October 2007 his new holding, the Onexim Group, confirmed that it had become Norilsk’s largest shareholder (Lenta.ru, citing Kommersant, 12 October 2007). In April 2008 he sold his quarter of Norilsk to the aluminium producer Rusal for cash and Rusal shares, a deal Reuters valued at about $14 billion (Reuters via The Moscow Times, The Moscow Times, 23 December 2010). The split with Potanin was completed in September 2010 (The Moscow Times, 14 September 2010). In February 2018 he sold his last 6 percent of Rusal to a consortium led by Viktor Vekselberg (Reuters via Engineering News, 20 February 2018).

In January 2007 Prokhorov was held for three days by French police in the ski resort of Courchevel, where they were investigating whether prostitutes had been procured for hotel guests. He was released without charge; the prosecutor designated him a material witness and said there was “no serious evidence” against him (AFP via Al Jazeera, 12 January 2007, Associated Press via NBC News, 12 January 2007). In 2009 his lawyer said that the French court had closed the case without charging anyone (Gazeta.ru, 28 September 2009, Delovoy Peterburg, 30 September 2009). Reuters later reported that Potanin had called his partner’s behaviour “scandalous” before the two split their assets (Reuters via The Moscow Times).

Onexim Group

The Onexim Group manages Prokhorov’s investments; his foundation’s website describes him as its founder and president (Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation). From 2006 he chaired the board of the gold miner Polyus Gold, and in February 2013 he sold his stake to two Russian buyers for $3.6 billion (Delovoy Peterburg, Reuters via The Moscow Times, 25 February 2013). In September 2008 Onexim agreed to pay $500 million for half of the investment bank Renaissance Capital, which Stephen Jennings had founded in 1995; Onexim took control in 2012 and owned all of it from April 2013 (The Moscow Times, 23 September 2008, The Moscow Times, 26 February 2013, Interfax, 3 April 2013). In November 2024 Onexim sold Renaissance Capital’s Russian business to its managers (Prime, 13 November 2024).

Prokhorov held the controlling stake in the media group RBC from 2010 and sold it in June 2017 to Grigory Berezkin’s ESN group (Vedomosti via ComNews, 19 June 2017, Meduza, 16 June 2017). In February 2022 Onexim agreed to sell its 82.47 percent of the power company Quadra to a subsidiary of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom (Interfax, 1 February 2022). In February 2023 Onexim still owned the consumer lender Renaissance Credit (Interfax, 21 February 2023); Forbes says he has stakes in Russian insurance and banking (Forbes, updated 10 March 2026).

Brooklyn Nets

Prokhorov agreed in 2009 to buy 80 percent of the New Jersey Nets and 45 percent of a planned arena in Brooklyn from the developer Bruce Ratner; the NBA approved the sale and it closed on 12 May 2010 (Associated Press via Honolulu Advertiser, 12 May 2010). NBA commissioner David Stern called him “the league’s first majority investor from outside of North America” (Commercial Observer, 11 May 2010). In 2018 he sold 49 percent of the Brooklyn Nets to the Alibaba executive Joseph Tsai, and in 2019 he agreed to sell Tsai his remaining 51 percent and the Barclays Center; the NBA approved the sale on 18 September 2019 (Eurohoops, 17 August 2019, NBA, 18 September 2019, Forbes).

From October 2008 to 2014 Prokhorov was president of the Russian Biathlon Union (Radio Svoboda, 4 April 2014, Fontanka, 30 December 2025).

Politics

On 25 June 2011 Prokhorov was elected leader of the pro-business party Right Cause (The Moscow Times, 26 June 2011). He left it on 15 September 2011, saying he was resigning while opponents in the party said he had been ousted, and accused the Kremlin official Vladislav Surkov of being “a puppeteer who long ago privatized the political system” (RFE/RL, 15 September 2011, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 May 2013).

In the presidential election of 4 March 2012 he stood as a self-nominated candidate against Vladimir Putin and finished third with 7.98 percent, according to the Central Election Commission as reported by RIA Novosti; in Moscow he came second (Congressional Research Service, 2012, PanARMENIAN, citing RIA Novosti, 5 March 2012, AFP via Hurriyet Daily News, 5 March 2012). After the vote he said: “I do not consider them [the elections] fair, but I have accepted this challenge” (RIA Novosti via GlobalSecurity, 5 March 2012). In 2012 he founded the party Civic Platform. He handed over its chairmanship in May 2014 and left all its bodies on 13 March 2015 (Meduza, 13 March 2015, Lenta.ru, 13 March 2015).

Foundation and awards

The Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation was set up on his initiative in 2004 and worked in Norilsk for its first three years; his sister Irina Prokhorova, editor of the publishing house New Literary Observer, is a co-founder (Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation, foundation structure, The Moscow Times, 27 March 2014). The foundation’s website lists among his awards the Order of Friendship (2006) and the French Legion of Honour (2011) (Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation).

Sanctions and citizenship

Country	Listed	Status in October 2026
Ukraine	19 October 2022	Listed for ten years (Decree 727/2022)
United States	no	Not listed (OFAC SDN list)
United Kingdom	no	Not listed (UK sanctions list)
European Union	no	Not listed (EU consolidated list)
Canada	no	Not listed (Canada’s consolidated list)
Switzerland	no	Not listed (SECO sanctions list)

Ukraine listed Prokhorov in the sanctions decision of its National Security and Defence Council of 19 October 2022, put into force by Presidential Decree 727/2022, describing him as a citizen of Russia and Israel. The measures include blocking of assets and run for ten years; the annex gives no reasons (annex to Decree 727/2022, Decree 727/2022). No other country has listed him: we checked the US, UK and Canadian lists as of 8 October 2026, the Swiss list including its history of changes as of 5 October 2026, New Zealand’s register and Poland’s national list as of 11 October 2026, Australia’s consolidated list as of 7 October 2026 (Australian Sanctions Consolidated List, 7 October 2026) and the EU list as of its review of 22 September 2026. Japan’s list could not be checked.

In April 2022 the Israeli news site Ynet reported that Prokhorov had flown to Israel and applied for citizenship under the Law of Return; his Onexim Group said at the time that he had travelled for a medical examination (Forbes Colombia, citing Ynet, 18 May 2022, Fontanka, 4 April 2022). Forbes now states that “Prokhorov got Israeli citizenship in 2022” (Forbes, updated 10 March 2026). We found no criminal charge against Prokhorov in Russia or elsewhere.

About this profile

This profile was rewritten in October 2026. The 2022 version was mostly a general text on how to become an oligarch, including a paragraph about connections to Vladimir Putin that said nothing about Prokhorov himself. It also stated that he founded Renaissance Capital in 1996, announced a presidential bid in 2010 and withdrew before the vote, bought the Nets in 2011 or 2012, led Right Cause from 2011 to 2013 and set up his foundation in 2012. Each of these dates was wrong, and the corrected facts are given above. Statements about his private life, art collection and properties had no source and have been removed. The net worth figure in the box at the top of this page comes from Forbes and carries its date.