Alexander Nesis: ICT Group Founder, Polymetal and the 2024 Stake Sale

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Sanctions status — checked 4 August 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. 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 Alexander Nesis’s net worth at $2.1 billion as of 4 April 2023 (Forbes profile). Estimates are revised continuously and Forbes and Bloomberg frequently disagree.

Alexander Nesis is a businessman from St. Petersburg who founded the investment group ICT in 1991. ICT founded the precious metals miner Polymetal in 1998 and remained its largest shareholder until January 2024, when it sold its entire 23.9 percent stake to a consortium of Omani investors. He holds Russian, Maltese and Israeli citizenship. Only Ukraine has sanctioned him; he is not on the US, UK, EU, Canadian, Swiss, Australian or New Zealand lists.

  • Born: 19 December 1962 in Leningrad, today St. Petersburg (Forbes Russia, annex to Ukraine’s Decree 727/2022)
  • Education: Leningrad Technological Institute, graduated 1985 in radiation chemistry
  • Known for: founder of ICT Group; ICT founded Polymetal and was its largest shareholder until 2024; earlier holdings in the Baltic Shipyard, Nomos-Bank and the United Wagon Company
  • Citizenship: Russia, Malta and Israel, according to Polymetal’s disclosure of March 2022 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, Australia or New Zealand

Education and the Baltic Plant

Nesis was born on 19 December 1962 in Leningrad (Forbes Russia, annex to Decree 727/2022). He graduated from the Leningrad Technological Institute in 1985 with a degree in radiation chemistry (Forbes Russia, Delovoy Peterburg, 12 January 2016). In 1985 he joined the Baltic Plant, a St. Petersburg shipyard, as a foreman in shop No. 6, and by 1991 he was deputy head of that shop (Delovoy Peterburg).

In 1991 he and several partners founded the company IST, short for “Investments, Construction, Technologies”, which later became ICT Group (Delovoy Peterburg). According to Forbes, his first business was extracting rare-earth metals from uranium mining waste at a mine in Uzbekistan and selling them; Forbes Russia places this in the early 1990s, the English-language Forbes profile in the late 1980s (Forbes Russia, Forbes).

ICT Group

In 1993 Nesis bought a controlling stake in the Baltic Plant and became chairman of its board; he also founded Nomos-Bank (Delovoy Peterburg, Forbes Russia). In 2012 the Otkritie banking group paid for a 19.9 percent stake in Nomos-Bank with Uralkali shares it had bought from ICT (BFM.ru, 13 August 2012); after the two banking groups merged, ICT held 9.82 percent of Otkritie Holding (Delovoy Peterburg, 2016).

ICT built the United Wagon Company (OVK), a railway freight car maker whose modernised plant in Tikhvin opened in 2012 (Delovoy Peterburg, Jewish.ru, citing RBC, 27 October 2020). In August 2015 ICT still held 74.7 percent of OVK (Kommersant, 6 August 2015). It then reduced its stake, and in December 2018 the state corporation Rostec bought ICT’s last 9.33 percent (Forbes Russia, 21 December 2018). In 2013 Nesis was part of a consortium that bought 33 percent of the Greek gambling company Opap, paying 145 million euros for his share (The Moscow Times, 14 August 2013). In 2016 ICT also held 29 percent of the Moscow developer O1 Properties and 45 percent of the Eastern Mining Company (Delovoy Peterburg). We found no recent source for these holdings.

Polymetal and the sale of 2024

ICT founded Polymetal, a gold and silver miner, in 1998 (Reuters via Mining.com, 29 January 2024, AGBI, 29 January 2024). According to a company statement reported by The Moscow Times, ICT sold Polymetal to a vehicle of Suleiman Kerimov in 2005 and returned in 2008 as an investor with 24 percent (The Moscow Times, 17 June 2008). In March 2022 Polymetal disclosed that ICT Holding Ltd held 23.9 percent of the company and that Nesis owned 47.29 percent of its parent, ICT Group Ltd; the company added that no shareholder of ICT Group Ltd controlled it (Polymetal International plc, 9 March 2022). His brother Vitaly Nesis is the company’s chief executive, today of Solidcore (Forbes Russia, Interfax, 3 July 2026).

On 19 May 2023 the US State Department sanctioned Polymetal’s Russian operating company, Polimetall AO; the US Treasury noted that neither it nor the State Department had designated the parent, Polymetal International plc (OFAC, FAQ 1129). Polymetal moved its legal seat from Jersey to the Astana International Financial Centre in Kazakhstan on 7 August 2023 (Interfax, 8 August 2023). On 29 January 2024 ICT sold its entire 23.9 percent stake to a company owned by a consortium of investors from Oman led by Mercury Investments International, and ICT’s representative left Polymetal’s board (Interfax, 29 January 2024, Reuters via Mining.com, Kapital.kz, 29 January 2024).

Polymetal International then sold its Russian business to JSC Mangazeya Plus; the sale was completed on 7 March 2024 (Polymetal International plc, 11 March 2024). In June 2024 the company was renamed Solidcore Resources, while the Polymetal name stayed with the Russian business (Forbes Kazakhstan). Today Solidcore’s shareholder page lists Maaden International Investment, an Omani investor, with 31.7 percent and does not list ICT (Solidcore Resources, retrieved 13 October 2026, Interfax, 3 July 2026).

Sanctions and citizenship

CountryListedStatus in October 2026
Ukraine19 October 2022Listed for ten years (Decree 727/2022)
United StatesnoNot listed; Polymetal’s former Russian subsidiary was designated in May 2023
United KingdomnoNot listed
European UnionnoNot listed
CanadanoNot listed
SwitzerlandnoNot listed
AustralianoNot listed
New ZealandnoNot listed

Ukraine listed Nesis in the sanctions decision of its National Security and Defence Council of 19 October 2022, put into force by Presidential Decree 727/2022. The annex describes him as a citizen of Russia, Malta and Israel; the measures include blocking of assets and run for ten years, and the annex gives no reasons (annex to Decree 727/2022). Polymetal’s disclosure of March 2022 also gave his citizenships as Israel, Malta and Russia and described him as resident in Switzerland (Polymetal International plc, 9 March 2022); we found no more recent source for his residence. No other country has listed him, and we found no criminal charge against him.

About this profile

This profile was rewritten in October 2026. The 2022 version described Nesis as “a private equity company with its headquarters in Moscow”, mixing up the person and his ICT Group, and called him a banking and finance businessman who “shows no signs of slowing down”, although ICT has since left both the wagon maker OVK and Polymetal. Its remarks on astrology, ethnicity and the group’s offices 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.

Sources

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