Sergei Galitsky is a businessman who owes his billion-dollar fortune to the Magnit retail company. It was he who created and came up with a brand of grocery stores known throughout the country. Galitsky is proud that he has earned a name and an impressive fortune by his own labor. The businessman is a devoted citizen of the city of Krasnodar and does a lot for its development and prosperity. Perhaps the most closed aspect of Sergei Nikolaevich's personality remains his private life and family.
The beginning of the way
Sergey Nikolaevich Galitsky is a native of the warm and hospitable Krasnodar Territory. It is not for nothing that he calls his native land the best place to live in Russia and does not plan to leave them, exchanging them for the elite Rublevka or foreign capitals. The future businessman was born on August 14, 1967 in the resort village of Lazarevskoye. His father, like Sergei himself, up to a certain point, bore the surname Harutyunyan. When asked about his nationality, Galitsky replies that he is a quarter Armenian, and the rest is of Russian blood. He is proud of his mixed heritage. True, he cannot even boast of knowing the Armenian language.
The billionaire recalls his childhood as a series of working days. He hardly had a vacation. At first he played football intensively, then switched to chess. Already in the ninth grade, Sergei won the title of Sochi chess champion. By his own admission, at school the young man did not have high marks or outstanding knowledge. Now Galitsky is firmly convinced that intelligence can be developed and a talented businessman can be raised from any child.
So, after school, he served two years in the army and in 1988 entered the Kuban State University at the Faculty of Economics. He began his labor activity while studying at the institute. He was helped in this by an article on the topic of liquidity, which the student sent to the journal "Finance and Credit". After the publication of this work, one of the private Krasnodar banks became interested in Sergei Nikolaevich and offered him a job.
In 1993, the future businessman received a diploma in economic and social planning. The following year, he left the banking industry as a deputy bank manager. Galitsky founded his first company, Transazia, at the age of 27. True, not alone, but together with partners. The initial direction of his activity was the distribution of household chemicals and cosmetics from well-known manufacturers. A year later, the aspiring businessman left this project and created the Tander company on his own.
Era of "Magnet"
Galitsky assures that he started his business, like most ordinary people - with loans, a thorough study of the market, selection of a team. In 1998, he opened a small wholesale store in Krasnodar, but then changed the format of his outlets to discounters - stores that offer goods at below market prices. In 2000, the brainchild of a businessman was named “Magnet chain stores”. In just 12 months, 250 Galitsky stores that opened in different parts of the country were named the largest retail chain in Russia.
From that moment on, the business of the new trading giant went uphill. And its owner in 2005 for the first time appeared in the list of the richest people in Russia according to the Forbes magazine, taking 64th place out of 200. By the way, in recent years he has been steadily in the top 20. Moreover, Galitsky knows how not only to make money, but also to spend for good purposes, in particular, for the needs of his native region. In 2008, with his personal funds, the Krasnodar football club was founded, which in just three years managed to reach the Premier League. In addition, the teams have built a stadium with 20 thousand seats to host home matches. The opening of the facility took place in October 2016, when a friendly match between the national teams of Russia and Costa Rica took place on its field.
In 2017, Forbes included Magnit in the top 100 innovative companies in the world. Apart from Galitsky's company, only Norilsk Nickel was included in this rating from Russia. Since 2016, experts have begun to note a drop in the revenue of the largest retail chain amid the strong growth of competitors. It became obvious that Magnit needed new management personnel and a change in its development strategy. Galitsky and other shareholders of his company could not agree on these issues. Therefore, at the beginning of 2018, the businessman made the difficult decision to part with the controlling stake in his brainchild. They were acquired by VTB Bank, and the former owner kept only 3% for himself. When Galitsky went to his employees in Krasnodar to tell the news, he was greeted with applause and shouts: "Thank you!"
Private life
After the official departure from Magnit, Sergei Nikolayevich intends to stay and live in Krasnodar. He does not plan to leave his beloved city under any circumstances. Even traveling by sea on a personal 100-meter yacht, a businessman begins to miss his native land within a week. Galitsky wants to associate his further future with the development of youth football. In addition, he sees no reason to leave his billion-dollar fortune to his heirs, but would like to spend it himself.
However, these eccentric thoughts are unlikely to make the businessman leave his only daughter, Polina, without financial support. She was born on November 2, 1995 and for many years in a row has been included in the ranking of the 10 richest heirs of Russia, since she single-handedly claims her father's billionaire fortune.
Galitsky met his future wife during his student years. She also studied at the Kuban University, only in the accounting specialty. It was the marriage to Victoria that gave the businessman a new, more familiar surname for Russian perception. According to rumors, the girl's father insisted on changing the passport data by the son-in-law. In any case, Sergei Nikolayevich agreed to this step and glorified his new name all over the world.
Unfortunately, the Galitsky family leads a rather closed lifestyle, so it is not known for certain what the wife and daughter of a billionaire look like. And in interviews, he talks little and reluctantly about them. For example, she admits that she does not see the point in teaching a child abroad, so the heiress of a businessman, like her parents, studied at the Kuban University.
According to unconfirmed information, in 2015 Polina Galitskaya got married. Her chosen one was Artem Lukomets, who served as head of the All-Russian Research Institute of Oilseeds. But this marriage lasted less than a year. What the girl or her mother is doing now is not known for certain. But given the financial well-being of this family, they can afford not to work and enjoy life.
